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THE   MIND   OF   TENNYSON 


Th 


Mind  of  Tennyson 


HIS  THOUGUrS  ON  GOD,   FREEDOM, 
AND  IMMORTALirr 


BY 

E.   HERSFIEY    SNEATH,   Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY    IN    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


*' We  have  but  faith:  we  cannot  know** 


UNIVERSiTY   ) 

\  OF        .       / 


I,  O  N  D  O  N 
ARCHIBALD   CONSTABLE   &   CO.,   Ltd. 

2  Whitehall  Gardens,  S.  W. 
190  I 


4     x> 


L 


^^7 


Copyright,  1900,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
for  the  United  States  of  America. 


Printed  by  the  University  Press, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


tftOFf!*^^ 


TO 

MY   FATHER  AND    MOTHER 


k  O  ly  0»  U  '4/ 


PREFACE 

THE  aim  of  this  little  book  is  to  in- 
terpret and  systematise  Tennyson's 
thoughts  on  God,  Freedom,  and  Immortal- 
ity. Great  care  has  been  taken  not  to 
force  the  interpretation  in  any  manner,  but 
to  determine  as  nearly  as  possible  just 
what  the  poet  thought  on  these  *'  inevita- 
ble questions."  To  this  end  special  effort 
has  been  made  to  distinguish  between  the 
subjective  and  objective,  —  the  personal 
and  impersonal,  —  in  his  poetry ;  also,  to 
make  due  allowance  for  metaphor  and 
poetic  license.  The  interpretation  has,  of 
course,  been  made  in  the  light  of  Tenny- 
son's relation  to  the  spirit  of  his  age. 

Tennyson  was  such  a  consummate  artist 
that  a  large  number  of  his  readers  are, 
very  naturally,  more  interested  in  the  form 
than  in  the  substance  of  his  poetry.  lie 
was,  however,  a  poet  with  "  a  conscience 


viii  Preface 

and  an  aim,"  and  the  aim  was  primarily 
an  ethical  one.  He  had  something  to  say 
which  he  deemed  to  be  of  vital  import  in 
its  bearing  on  human  life  and  conduct. 
Therefore,  a  knowledge  of  his  ''message" 
is  necessary  to  an  adequate  understanding 
and  appreciation  of  both  the  poet  and 
his  art,  —  whatever  of  value  we  may  attri- 
bute to  the  message  itself  That  this  little 
book  will  contribute  to  this  end,  is  the 
earnest  hope  of  the  author. 

E.  H.  S. 


CONTENTS 

Page 
Introduction i 

God 28 

Freedom ^6 

Immortality 106 


THE 

MIND    OF   TENNYSON 

INTRODUCTION 

The  truths  that  never  can  be  proved. 

In  Memorium,  cxxxi.,  3. 

The  faith,  the  vigour,  bold  to  dwell 
On  doubts  that  drive  the  coward  back. 

I?i  Memoriam^  xcv.,  8. 

npENNYSON,  throughout  the  greater 
-*-  part  of  his  life,  was  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  problems  _of  ^philosophy. 
They  constituted  one  of  the  main  sources 
of  his  poetical  inspiration,  and  occupy 
a  conspicuous  place  in  the  productions 
V  of  his  genius.  Early  in  his  career  as 
a  poet,  we  find  him  engaged  in  a  con- 
test with  scepticism  concerning  them. 
This  is  manifest  in  the,  poem  entitled, 
Supposed  Confessions  of  a  Second-Rate  Sen- 
sitive Mind.      A  little  later,  in  77ie  Two 


2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Voices^  he  considers  the  problem  of  the 
worth  of  human  life.  Again,  in  The 
Palace  of  Art,  he  reflects  upon  important 
aspects  of  moral  life  and  theory.  In  the 
Higher  Pantheism,  he  treats  of  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  reality,  and  of  the  rela-  | 
tion  of  the  finite  to  the  Infinite  —  two  of  j. 
the  most  fundamental  problems  of  meta- 
physics. In  In  Memoriam,  he  meditates 
long  and  seriously  upon  the  great  prob- 
lems of  God  and  immortality ;  upon  the 
mysterious  realities  of  sin  and  suffering; 
upon  the  problems  of  knowledge,  —  its 
origin,  nature,  reality,  development,  ex- 
tent; its  distinction  from  faith,  — almost 
unconsciously  constructing  a  kind  of  phi- 
losophy of  life.      In  the  Idylls  of  the  Kingy 

the 

"  old  imperfect  tale, 
New-old,  and  shadowing  Sense  at  war  with  Soul," 

"the   spiritually   central    lines"   concern    ( 
the  reality  of  God,  the  finite  spirit,  and    ' 
immortality.     In  De  Profundis,  we  have 
thoughts   upon  the   mystery  of   birth,   in 


Introduction  j 

which  he  hints  at  the  pre-existence  of 
the  soul ;  and  also  upon  the  mystery  of 
personality,  — 

''this  main-miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world." 

In  T/ie  Ancient  Sage,  he  opposes  mate- 
rialistic and  agnostic  views  of  God  and 
immortality,  and  presents  suggestions 
concerning  the  value  of  proof  in  the 
domain  of  fundamentals,  —  pointing  out 
the  limits  of  proof,  and  the  province  and 
value  of  faith.  In  Despair,  he  reveals  his 
knowledge  and  opinions  of  a  cold  and 
heartless  theology  on  the  one  hand,  and 
an  atheistic  and  agnostic  philosophy  on 
the  other,  —  of  the  severe  creeds  of  the 
>  "know-all  chapel,"  and  the  "horrible  in- 
fidel writings,"  or  "know-nothing  books," 
/  of  "the  new  dark  ages."  In  The  Promise 
of  May,  he  strikes  at  some  of  the  promi- 
nent philosophical  tendencies  of  the  age 
as  they  bear  upon  human  conduct.  In 
Vastness,    the   subject    of    immortality    is 


^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

again  under   consideration.      Finally,   in 
poems  like  those  entitled,  By  an  Evolution- 
ist^ The  DawUf  and   The  Making  of  Man, 
he  reflects  upon  the  ultimate  goal  of  man's 
evolution.     Thus  we  see,  that  almost  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  poetical 
(  career,  Tennyson  was  earnestly  interested 
in,  and   concerned  with,   the  deeper  and 
y    profounder  problems  of  the  human  mind. 
Nor   are  we   dependent  upon    internal 
evidence  alone  to  convince  us  of  the  truth 
of    this    statement.      There    is    a    large 
amount  of  external  evidence  which  estab- 
lishes it  beyond  a  doubt.      In  the  Memoir} 
recently  published  by  Hallam  Lord  Ten- 
nyson, we  are  told  that  a  group  of  friends, 
of  which  Tennyson  was  one,  who  consti- 
tuted the  "Apostles'"  club,  of  Cambridge, 
during  his  university  career,  "read  their 
Hobbes,  Locke,  Berkeley,   Butler,  Hume, 
Bentham,   Descartes,  and   Kant,    and  dis- 
cussed such    questions    as  the    Origin  of 

1  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson  :    A  Memoir  by   his  Son. 
New  York,  1897.     Vol.  i.,  pp.  43,  44. 


Introduction  5 

Evil,  the  Derivation  of  Moral  Senti- 
ments, Prayer,  and  the  Personality  of 
God."  We  are  further  informed,  that 
"  soon  after  his  marriage  he  took  to  read- 
ing different  systems  of  philosophy,"  and 
that  "  Spinoza,  Berkeley,  Kant,  Schlegel, 
Fichte,  Hegel,  Ferrier,  were  among  the 
books  added  to  his  library."^  Again,  we 
learn,  that  he  was  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Metaphysical  Society  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, established  for  the  discussion  of  fun- 
damental questions  of  the  Christian  faith. 
It  was  composed  of  adherents  and  oppo- 
nents of  the  Faith.  Among  its  members 
were  such  distinguished  philosophical 
thinkers  as  Martineau,  Hodgson,  Sidg- 
wick,  Fraser,  and  Groom  Robertson ;  such 
prominent  biblical  and  theological  schol- 
ars as  Maurice,  Stanley,  Mozley,  and 
Alford ;  such  notable  men  of  science  as 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and 
St.  George  Mivart;  such  renowned  men 
of  letters  as  Tennyson,  Hutton,  Ruskin, 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  30S. 


6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

and  Froude.i  Dr.  Martineau  tells  us,  that 
some  of  the  subjects  discussed  in  the 
meetings  when  Tennyson  was  present 
were,  "The  Common-sense  Philosophy  of 
Causation, "  "  Is  there  any  Axiom  of  Causa- 
tion ?  "  "  The  Relativity  of  Knowledge, " 
"The  Emotion  of  Conviction,"  "What  is 
Death  ?  "  "  The  Supposed  Necessity  for 
Seeking  a  Solution  of  Ultimate  Meta- 
physical Problems,"  "  The  Five  Idols  of  the 
Theatre,"  "Utilitarianism,"  and  "Double 
Truth.  "2  Again,  in  his  letter-diary,  we 
find,  under  date  of  Dec.  14,  1865,  that  he 
had  called  on  Tyndall  "and  had  a  long 
chat  with  him  about  mind  and  matter, 
etc."  2  In  Lady  Tennyson's  Journal, 
under  date  of  August  17,  1866,  she  writes 
that  "A.  [Alfred]  and  Edmund  [Lushing- 
ton]  talked  metaphysics.  They  have  en- 
grossed A.  much  of  late."^  Tennyson's 
son  informs  us,  that  "the  philosophers  of 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  i66,  167. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  170,  171. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  32. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  39. 


Introduction  j 

the  East  had  a  great  fascination  "  for  his 
father.^  Akbar  s  Drecun  is  a  testimony  to 
this  fact.  Finally,  Locker-Lampson, 
Lecky,  Jovvett,  Tyndall,  and  the  Duke  of 
Argyll,  in  their  contributions  to  the  Me- 
moir^ all  bear  witness  to  Tennyson's  great  i 
interest  in  the  questions  of  speculative 
thought. 

The  causes  of  this  peculiar  interest  in 
the  problems  of  philosophy  are  not  diffi- 
cult to  determine.      In  the  first  place,  it    i 
was  due,  in  a  measure,  to  poetic  tempera- 
ment.    The  poet  is  essentially  a  man  of  ,, 
reflection,   and  this  at  once  puts  him  in 
touch  with  the  almost  permanent  mood  of 
the  philosopher;  and  very  naturally  leads 
him  to  the  subject-matter  of  philosophy. 
Again,  the  aesthetic  nature  is  one  of  the'?^ 
main  sources  of  philosophy  itself.      It  has 
its  ideals  of  the  beautiful  and  sublime,  and 
posits  an  objective  reality  as  their  Ground. 
In  its  more  refined  and  profound  moods 
the  aesthetic  nature  is  led  on  to  the  recog- 

1  Memoir,  vcjI.  ii.,  p.  38S. 


8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

nition  of  a  Supreme  Reality,  which  is  the 
perfect  embodiment  or  realisation  of  abso- 
lute beauty.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  to 
note,  that  the  ontological  argument  for  the 
being  and  nature  of  God,  which  argues  the 
existence  of  a  Perfect  Being  from  the  nec- 
essary Idea  of  the  Perfect  within  the  mind, 
has,  in  a  measure,  its  roots  in  the  aesthetic 
nature  of  man.  It  is  equally  worthy  of 
note,  that  the  teleological  argument  for 
the  intelligence  of  the  Deity,  based  on 
the  apparent  adaptation  of  means  to  ends, 
order  and  harmony,  beauty  and  proportion, 
in  the  world,  has  its  roots  also  in  the  con- 
stitutional sestheticism  of  man.  It  is  not, 
then,  a  matter  of  wonder  that  poets  like 
Sophocles  and  Lucretius,  Dante  and 
Milton,  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  Words- 
worth and  Shelley,  Browning  and  Tenny- 
son, have  found  much  in  the  problems  of 
philosophy  to  engage  their  attention  and 
to  inspire  their  gejaius. 

But   poetic   temperament  was   not   the 
\    only    cause    of    Tennyson's    interest    in 


::J 


Introduction  q 

these    great   questions.       Another    cause 
was   li^rflE*cre    struggle   with    his    own'C 
y/    doub^WIHr  with  the  doubts  of  his  age.   ] 
He  wa^ot  a  "  born-believer. "     Constitu- 
tionally he  was    not  predisposed  to  take 
things  on  authority,  but  rather  to  inquire 

"  into  the  laws 
Of  life  and  death,  and  things  that  secm,» 
And  things  that  be,  and  analyse* 
Our  double  nature,  and  compare* 
All  creeds  till  we  have  found  the  one,# 
If  one  there  be.'ll 

There  was  a  long  and  bitter  struggle  with 
his  own  questionings,  and  a  noble  endeavor 
to  get  a  solid  footing  with  reference  to 
the  "Eternal  Verities."  This  personal 
struggle  received  a  tremendous  impulse  ; 
through  the  loss  of  his  much-loved  friend, 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam.  He  himself  tells 
us,  — ■ 

"  Like  Paul  with  beasts,  I  fought  with  Deatli." 

He  fought  with  those  doubts  which  death 
usually  suggests  concerning  the  reality  of 
God,    and    his    divine   Fatherhood;    the 


10  The  Mind  qf  Tennyson 


J  meaning   and  worth   of   human    life,   and 

]*  the   final   destiny   of    the   huAjj^  spirit. 

y  All  through  those  seventeen  yWfe  —  the 

^  period  covered  in  writing  In  Men%riam  — 

a  soul  knowing  "its  own  bitterness," 
wrapped  in  profound  meditation,  tried 
manfully  to  beat  back  its  own  scepticism 
by  patient,  earnest  inquiry  into  the 
rational  grounds  for  believing  that  God 
is;  that  He  is  personal;  that  He  is  essen- 
tial Justice  and  Love;  that  life,  with  its 
love  and  duty,  has  intrinsic  worth  and 
meaning;  that  destiny  is  something 
loftier  than  the  dust.  It  was  a  sub- 
lime struggle,  and  a  triumphant  out- 
come, as  the  prologue  to  In  Memoriam 
testifies.^ 
^.  Then,  too,  the  age  was  an  age  of  active 

questioning  and  doubt  —  and,  indeed,  in  a 
y      large  measure,  of  positive  denial.     Scienc^'^^ 
was  making  tremendous  progress,  and,  as" 
is   more   or   less    characteristic   of    such 

1  The  prologue  bears  the  date  1849.    -^'^  Memoriam 
was  published  1850. 


Introduction  ii 

periods,  although  not  necessarily  so, 
Materialism  attended  her  advance.  The 
mecha^i^feii!"  conception  of  the  world, 
recognising  only  necessary  sequence  in 
the  explanation  of  phenomena,  was  con- 
spicuous in  scientific  and  philosophic 
thought.  This  view  was  supposed  by 
many  to  bear  strongly  against  the  teleo- 
logical  argument  for  the  intelligence  of 
the  World-Ground,  and  against  the  reality 
of  self -determining  spirit. 

"  And  as  of  old  from  Sinai's  top 

God  said  that  God  is  One, 
By  Science  strict  so  speaks  He  now 

To  tell  us,  There  is  None  ! 
Earth  goes  by  chemic  forces  ;  Heaven  's 

A  Mccanique  Cdleste  ! 
And  heart  and  mind  of  human  kind 

A  watch-work  as  the  rest !  "  ^ 

Q> 

Again,  the  theory  of  the  correlation  of 
forces  was  almost  universally  accepted 
among  students  of  science,  — at  least,  so 
far  as  it  referred  to  physical  and  chemical 
forces.      It  did  not  take  long  to  extend  it 

1  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  The  A\nv  Sinai. 


12  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

to  the  domain  of  life,  and  it  required  but 
one  step  more  to  apply  it  to  the  psychic 
realm  —  the  realm  of  consciousness.  This 
theory,  as  applied  to  life  and  mind,  favored 
Materialism,  and  very  naturally  raised 
serious  doubts  as  to  the  existence  of  a 
Supreme  Spirit  called  God;  as  to  whether 
men,  in  the  final  analysis,  are  anything 
more  than  highly  organised  matter,  or 
"cunning  casts  in  clay." 

Furthermore,  the  theory  of  organic  evo- 
lution was  widely  accepted  in  the  scientific 
world.  Its  claims  concerning  the  origin 
of  species,  especially  man,  were  so  at 
variance  with  previous  and  contemporary 
theological  opinion  that,  for  a  while,  they 
caused  grave  anxiety  in  the  world  of  re- 
ligious thought  and  belief.  Man  being  so 
completely  a  part  of  Nature,  as  this  theory 
indicates,  and  seems  to  substantiate  by 
exceedingly  convincing  lines  of  evidence, 
what  about  his  relations  to  the  Supernat- 
ural.'^ With  such  an  apparently  low 
origin,  what  about  the  divine  stamp —  the 


Introduction  ij 

image  of  God  —  which  the  Christian  world 
has  always  supposed  him  to  bear?  With 
such  a  low  ancestry,  and  therefore  such  a 
common  nature,  how  about  his  claims  on 
immortality?  Does  not  acceptance  of  this 
theory,  it  was  asked,  compromise  the  great 
beliefs  on  these  questions  in  which  the 
Christian  soul  has  wrought  and  rested 
through  the  ages? 

Again,  Darwin's  explanation  of  evolu- 
tion, largely  from  thtTstandpomt  of  naturaT 
selection,  involving  a  dreadful  struggle 
for  existence,  delivered  a  staggering  blow 
to  faith^in  the_goodness  and  love  of  God. 
Nature, 

"  red  in  tooth  and  claw, 
With  ravine  shriek'd  against  his  creed." 

These  were  some  of  the  questions  which 
the  progress  of  science  raised  in  the  minds 
of  thoughtful  men.  And,  indeed,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  many  minds,  resting 
serenely  in  an  inherited  belief,  were 
shaken  out  of  their  "dogmatic  slumber, " 
only  to  be  plunged  into  serious  doubt  and 
scepticism. 


i/f.  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Nor  was  the  trend  of  philosophical 
thought  in  this  age  more  favorable  to  posi- 
tive acceptance  of  the  so-called  "funda- 
mental truths,"  but  rather  against  it. 
Two  conspicuous  tendencies  characterise 
the  philosophy  of  this  period:  Sensation- 
alism and  Transcendentalism.  Sensa- 
tionalism, on  its  ontological  side,  that  is, 
on  the  side  of  being,  means  that,  so  far  as 
the  ultimate  nature  of  the  human  mind 
is  concerned,  it  is  nothing  more  than 
a  bundle  of  sensations.^  All  of  man's 
higher  mental  activities  are  ultimately 
reducible  to  sensations,  grouped  accord- 
ing to  certain  laws  of  association.  Hence 
man,  so  far  as  his  psychical  being  is  con- 
cerned, is  only  — 

/"  A  willy-nilly  current  of  sensations." 

1  It  takes  essentially  the  position  which  Hume 
took  several  centuries  ago  :  "  But  setting  aside  some 
metaphysicians  of  this  kind,  I  may  venture  to  affirm 
of  the  rest  of  mankind,  that  they  are  nothing  but  a 
bundle  or  collection  of  different  perceptions,  which 
succeed  each  other  with  an  inconceivable  rapidity,  and 
are  in  a  perpetual  flux  and  movement."  —  A  Treatise 
of  Human  Nature,  vol.  i.,  pt.  iv.,  sec.  vi. 


Introduction  75 

This,  of  course,  cancels  the  reality  of  the 
soul  as  a  distinct,  unitary  agent  or  subject 
of   conscious   states.      In   this   denial    of 
('the    reality  of  mind  was    involved,   as    a 
■"^"matter  of  course,  the  denial  of  its  freedom 
■and  immortality;  for,  under  such  circum- 
stances, there  is  no  mind  to  be  free  and 
immortal. 

These  were  the  implications  of  Sensa- 
tionalism viewed  from  an  ontological 
standpoint.  When  we  look  at  it  from 
an  epistemological  standpoint,  that  is, 
from  the  side  of  knowledge,  the  result 
is  equally  significant.  Its  logical  impli- 
cation, as  well  as  its  professed  position,  is 
Phenomenalism  —  which  means  Agnosti- 
cism. Knowledge  does  not  extend  beyond 
phenomena. .  ^.|t  is  limited  to  things  as 
they  appear  to  us  through  the  senses,  and 
does  not  reach  to  reality  as  it  is  in  itself. 
The  ultimate  nature  of  things  cannot  be 
known.  What  this  means  with  reference 
to  our  knowlege  of  God  is,  of  course, 
apparent.       God     is,     according    to    this 


>< 


^ 


i6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

theory,  "the  Unknown  and  the  Unknow- 
able."    In  short,  Sensationalism,  on  the 

j  side  of  being,  cancels  the  reality,  freedom, 
and  immortality  of  finite  spirit;  and,  on 
the  side  of  knowing,  shuts  us  out  from  the 
domain  of  reality —  dooming  us  to  a  hope- 
less Agnosticism  with  reference  to  Infinite 
Spirit. 

Nor  do  we  fare  any  better  at  the  hands 
of  the  more  subtle  and  refined  Transcen- 
dentalism of  the  age.  This  was  an  inheri- 
tance  from  Kant,   through   his  immortal 

\  work.    The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason.      It, 

/  too,  is  Phenomenalism  and  Agnosticism 
■ — but   of   a   different    character.       Kant 

'Jheld  that  things  are  known  to  us  under 
the  subjective  forms  of  sense-intuition  — 
^pace  and  time.  He  further  held,  that 
the  categories  of  the  understanding,  — 
cause  and  effect,  subject  and  attribute, 
etc.,  — which  unite  our  sense-objects,  are 
also  subjective,  that  is,  do  not  apply 
to  things-in-themselves.  So  that  we  can 
only   know  things   as   they  appear  to  us 


Introduction  ij 

under  these  forms  and  categories,  and 
not  as  they  really  are.  Furthermore, 
not  only  has  sense  its  native  forms,  and 
understanding  its  a  priori  categories,  but 
reason  has  its  native  ideas  —  the  Soul, 
the  World,  and  God.  Their  function  or 
office  is  to  unify  the  judgments  of  the 
understanding.  They  do  not  apply  to 
reality  —  they  also  are  merely  subjective. 
If  we  apply  them  to  reality,  we  fall  into 
hopeless  contradiction.  The  outcome  of 
Kant's  Critique  is  the  destruction  of 
the  foundations  of  Rational  Psychology, 
Pwational  Cosmology,  and  Rational  The- 
ology. Now,  this  Transcendentalism,  in- 
volving the  most  formidable  scepticism 
in  the  history  of  speculative  thought, 
appeared  later,  in  modified  forms,  in  the 
works  of  some  of  Tennyson's  contempo- 
raries. The  depressing  and  demoralising 
effect  of  such  teaching  is  apparent  when 
we  remember  that  it  shuts  out  God,  the 
human  soul,  and  its  destiny,  from  the 
knowledge  of  man  by  the  very  constitution 

2 


iS  The  Mind  of  Jenny  son 

of  human  knowledge  itself.  How  pro- 
foundly Tennyson  was  affected  by  these 
views,  will  be  seen  when  we  examine  his 
\ teaching  on  the  subjects  of  God,  Freedom, 
and  Immortality. 

The  religious  world,  also,  was  greatly 
agitated  by  important  movements  which 
had  a  tendency  to  shake  the  confidence  of 
many  in  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  the  validity  of  traditional  dogma. 
Quite  early  in  Tennyson's  age  we  have 
the  liberal  movement  of  the  early  Oriel 
School.  It  involved  an  attack  on  the 
infallible  authority  of  the  Church  and 
the  Sacred  Scriptures.  Both  Archbishop 
Whately  and  Thomas  Arnold  —  represen- 
tatives of  this  movement  —  assailed  the 
doctrine  of  apostolic  succession;  and  the 
latter  denied  the  dogma  of  Scriptural 
inerrancy,  anticipating,  also,  some  of  the 
positions  of  the  later  so-called  "Higher 
Criticism."  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
the  celebrated  Q^ord  movement,  led  by 
Newman     and    others,    representing    an 


Introduction  ig 

essentially  opposite  trend.  It  was  a 
movement  in  the  direction  of  the  infalli- 
ble authority  of  the  Church,  and  ultra 
conceptions  and  beliefs  concerning  the 
saving  efficacy  of  the  sacraments.  One 
movement  emphasises  the  authority  of 
reason,  and  the  other,  the  authority  of 
the  Church,  in  things  religious.  Later, 
there  is  another  liberal  movement  repre- 
sented by  such  men  as  Frederic  Dcnison 
Maurice  and  F.  W.  Robertson,  —  a  de- 
parture from  the  rigidity  of  traditional 
theology,  with  the  usual  controversy  and 
persecution  which  such  movements  call 
forth. 

Again,  we  meet  with  the  celebrated 
"  Essays  and  Reviews  "  controversy.  On 
the  liberal  side,  wc  have  a  number  of 
papers,  independently  prepared  by  dif- 
ferent writers,  containing  many  views  in 
harmony  with  the  spirit  and  results  of 
the  "Hicrhcr  Criticism."  The  weakness 
of  the  dogmas  of  inspiration  and  inerrancy 
of    the    Scriptures    is    pointed    out.      The 


/ 


20  The  Mind  of  iennyson 

traditional  views  of  miracles  are  opposed, 
and  the  irreconcilableness  of  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony  with  the  views  of  modern  sci- 
ence is  affirmed.  This  series  of  "  Essays  " 
provoked  controversy;  and  there  is  a  re- 
joinder in  the  form  of  another  series, 
likewise  independently  written,  represent- 
ing more  conservative  positions.  Still 
later,  we  find  the  methods  and  results  of 
the  "  Higher  Criticism  "  gaining  ground, 
and  traditional  theology  retreating  gradu- 
ally under  the  tremendous  pressure  of 
a  more  liberal  and  more  enlightened 
thought. 

Now,  controversy,  and  especially  re- 
ligious and  theological  controversy,  is 
usually  apt  to  be  fruitful  of  doubt.  It 
very  naturally  raises'the  question  in  many 
minds  as  to  the  possibility  of  getting  any 
stable  and  reliable  basis  for  knowledge 
andjjfeith;  as  to  whether  there  be  any- 
thing "final"  in  this  domain;  and 
whether,  after  all,  Agnosticism  be  not 
the   most   rational,   as  well    as  the   most 


Introduction  i'/ 

reverent,  attitude  toward   the  fundamen- 
tals of  religion.     Such  undoubtedly  were 
^  the  results  in  Tennyson's  age.     And  the 
movement  in  the  religious  world  during 
/  this  period  was  very  closely  related  to  the 
tendencies    in   the   scientific   and    philo- 
\  sophical  worlds  previously  described.     If 
'  science  and  philosophy  throw  doubt  upon 
the   so-called    "  Eternal    Verities "    with 
which  the  Christian  religion  is  especially 
concerned,  some  might  say,  we  can  still 
fall  back  upon  the  authority  of  the  Church 
and  Holy  Scripture.     But  with  the  infal- 
lible authority  of  these  impeached  by  the 
results  of  reverent  Christian  scholarship 
itself,  what  course  is  left  to  the  troubled 
and   inquiring    mind?     Agnosticism    was 
the    reply    which    many    serious-minded 
men  gave  to  the  question. 

Nmv,  Tennyson  was  profoundly  in  t^^h    '    \ 
with  his  age.     There  were  not  man}^Hn       f 
!    who    understood    it   better  than  he.     He     / 
\  had    his  finger  on   its  pulse,   and  his  ear 
^qpon  its  breast ;  so  that  he  heard  its  very 


\u] 


22  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

heart-beat.  He  was  acquainted  with  its 
problems,  and  he  knew  also  the  tremen- 
dous issues  involved  in  the  attitude  of  his 
age  toward  them.  On  the  side  of  being, 
a  crass  Materialism  cancels  the  reality  of 
a  personal  God,  a  self-determining  spirit, 
and  an  immortal  soul.  On  the  side  of 
knowledge,  a  helpless  Agnosticism  ex- 
cludes us  from  their  presence.  It  tells 
us  we  have  erected  our  altars  to  an  Un- 
known God,  whom,  or  which,  we  have 
been  ignorantly  worshipping.  It  affirms, 
also,  constitutional  impotency  of  man  in 
dealing  with  his  reality  and  immortal- 
ity as  a  personal  spirit.  Tennyson  had 
an  almost  morbid  appreciation  of  the 
vital  significance  of  belief  in  these  sup- 
posed realities  for  human  life;  and,  see- 
ing this  belief  powerfully  assailed,  he 
accessed  himself  earnestly  to  their  con- 
solation. Earnestly,  let  it  be  said,  for 
there  are  few  poets  who  have  realised  the 
ethical  obligations  of  their  art  more  than 
Tennyson  did.     With  him  the  end  of  art 


Introduction  2j 

was  not  art  itself.  "Art  for  Art's  sake" 
was  a  maxim  which  he  openly  rejected. 
Art.^must  subserve  an  ethical  end.  It 
must  be  a  vehicle  for  the  good. 

"  Art  for  Art's  sake  !     Hail,  truest  Lord  of  Hell ! 

Hail  Genius,  Master  of  the  Moral  Will ! 
'  The  filthiest  of  all  paintings  painted  well 
Is  mightier  than  the  purest  painted  ill ! ' 
Yes,  mightier  than  the  purest  painted  well, 

So  prone  are  we  toward  the  broad  way  to  Hell."    / 

Thus  he  characterised  "Art  for  Art's 
sake  "  "  instead  of  Art  for  Art  —  and  — '^ 
Man's  sake."^  His  son  says:  "These 
lines  in  a  measure  expressed  his  strong 
and  sorrowful  conviction,  that  the  English 
were  beginning  to  forget  what  was,  in 
Voltaire's  words,  the  glory  of  English 
literature  —  ^  No  nation  has  treated  in 
poetry  moral  ideas  with  more  energy  and 
depth  than  the  English  nation.' "^  He 
adds  further,  that  his  father  quoted  George 
Sand's  words:  "  L'art  pour  art  est  un 
vain  mot:  I'art  pour  Ic  vrai,  I'art  pour  le 

^  Memoir^  vol.  ii.,  p.  92.  2  ibij. 


24-  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

beau  et  le  bon,  voila  la  religion  que  je 
cherche. "  ^  The  "  calling  "  of  the  poet,  in 
Tennyson's  view,  is  a  responsible  one, 
and  he  must  be  obedient  to  it.  This 
seems  to  be  the  lesson  of  Mejdin  and  the 
GleaiHy  which  the  author  himself  pro- 
fessed to  exemplify.  In  short,  Tennyson 
felt  that  the  poet  must  not  work  "  without 
a  conscience  or  an  aim,"  and  his  aim  must 
V\^  be  primarily  an  ethical  one.  It  is  his 
business,  through  his  art,  to  help  men  live 
this    life  as  it  ought  to  be  lived.     Life, 


however,  cannot  thus  be  lived  if  we  rob  it 
of  great  hopes,  beliefs,  and  ideals.  The 
poet  must  proclaim  and  maintain  these  if 
*  it  be  possible.  The  most  important  of 
them  refer  to  God,  freedom,  and  the  soul's 
destiny.  These  give  meaning  and  worth 
to  life.  These  are  "the  mighty  hopes 
which  make  us  men."  But  the  age  assails 
them,  denies  them,  giving  strong  reasons 
for  its  unfaith.  The  effect  of  this  upon 
human    life    must   be    discouraging    and 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  92,  note. 


i 


Introduction  2^ 

demoralising.  A  Godless  world  —  with 
"dust  and  ashes  all  that  is!"  What  in- 
spiration then;  what  motive  power  can 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  man  to  live  his 
life  —  to  enable  him  to  suffer,  to  endure, 
to  love,  to  battle  for  the  True  and  Just  ? 
If  we  "  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  " 
in  Matter  and  Law,  instead  of  in  "  God 
the  Father;  "  if,  in  the  essential  elements 
of  our  nature,  we  are  merely  "cunning 
casts  in  clay,"  instead  of  self-determining 
spiritual  agents  —  responsible  for  conduct ; 
if  the  grave  be  the  goal  of  man's  endeavor, 
and  there  be  no  "life  everlasting;"  then 
the  beliefs  and  ideals  which  condition 
human  life  and  progress  lose  their  inspir- 
ing and  impelling  force. 

This  was  the  situation  as  Tennyson  saw 
it  in  the  light  of  the  tendencies  of  the  age. 
It  stirred  the  great  deeps  of  his  soul,  and 
aroused  him  to  most  earnest  consideration 
of  "  the  reasons  for  the  faith  "  which  much 
of  the  science  and  philosophy  of  the  time 
denied,    hoping,    in    consequence,    to    be 


^ 


26  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

able,  by  means  of  his  art,  to  give  some 
Jielpful  message  to  his  fellow-men.  And 
this  earnest  consideration  was  an  honest 
consideration,  also.  Tennyson  was  con- 
servative by  nature,  and  more  or  less 
predisposed  to  favor  the  Theistic  and 
Christian  beliefs  in  which  he  had  been 
nurtured,  and  the  significance  of  which 
he  so  thoroughly  appreciated  and  empha- 
sised. But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  could 
not  rest  in  a  blind  dogmatism.  He  loved 
the  truth,  and  was  desirous  of  knowing  it 
and  of  maintaining  it.  The  Welsh  motto, 
**The  truth  against  the  world,"  which  he 
sent  to  the  Tennyson  Society  of  Philadel- 
phia,i  illustrates  the  character  of  the  man. 
He  would  not  close  his  eyes  to  the  truth 
if  it  made  against  his  cherished  predis- 
positions or  beliefs.  Blind  authority 
could  never  furnish  a  permanent  refuge 
for  him.  An  unreasoned  or  an  unreason- 
able faith  could  not  satisfy  him.  What 
he  wrote  of  Hallam,  was  true  of  himself: 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  91. 


Introduction  zy 

"  He  would  not  make  bis  judgment  blind, 
He  faced  the  spectres  of  the  mind." 

How  true  these  words  are  in  their  appli- 
cation to  him  will  be  manifest  as  we 
carefully  follow  him  in  his  considera- 
tion of  the  great  questions  of  God,  Free- 
dom, and  Immortality. 


GOD 

"  Thou  canst  not  prove  the  Nameless." 

"  For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 

Nor  yet  disproven  :  wherefore  thou  be  wise, 

Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt, 

And  cling  to  Faith." 

The  Ancient  Sage, 

nr^HE  problem  of  knowledge  is  the  most 
-*-  conspicuous  problem  of  Modern 
Philosophy.  Not  knowledge  of  the  va- 
rious objects  of  the  particular  sciences, 
but  knowledge  as  knowledge^  —  knowl- 
edge in  its  origin,  nature,  reality,  and 
extent,  —  these  are  the  questions  which 
have  pre-eminently  engaged  the  specu- 
lative mind  from  Descartes  to  Herbert 
Spencer.  In  working  out  a  solution  of 
the  problem,  some  have  been  led  to  the 
conclusion,  that  the  mind  as  knowing 
mind  —  the  mind  as  "Reason,"  or  "Un- 
derstanding," or  "Intellect  "  —  is  incom- 


God  2g 

petent  to  attain  unto  reality.  Hence 
knowledge  is  not  real;  or,  it  is  knowledge 
merely  of  the  phenomenal  —  of  reality  as 
it  appears,  and  not  of  reality  as  it  is  in 
itself.  But  the  mind,  they  further  affirm, 
is  more  than  "  Reason, "  "  Understanding, " 
or  "Intellect."  It  is  "  Practical  Reason," 
"Intuitive  Reason,"  "Faith,"  or  "Believ- 
ing Soul,"  and  as  such,  it  is  able  to  attain 
unto  that  reality  from  which  "  Pure  Rea- 
son "  excludes  her.  However  wide  their 
differences  in  detail,  this  is  the  general 
position  of  such  writers  as  Kant,^  Jacobi,^ 
Hamilton, 2  and  Mansel.*  This  position, 
as  it  bears  on  the  question  under  consid- 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  1781  ;  2d  ed.,  revised, 
1787.  Eng.  trans,  by  Max  Miiller,  2  vols.,  London,  1881. 
Also,  Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft,  1788.  Eng. 
trans,  by  T.  K.  Abbot,  4th  ed.,  London,  1SS9. 

^  Brief e  iiber  die  Lehre  Spinoza's,  Berlin,  1785. 
2d  ed.,  enlarged,  17S9.  Also,  David  Hume  iiber  den 
Glauben,  odor  Idealismus  und  Realismus,  Breslau, 
1787. 

8  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  Edinburgh  and  London. 
1865.     Lectures  xxxviii-xl. 

*  The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought  E.\amined,  1858. 
Also  article,  "  Metaphysics,"  Encyclopccdia  Britannica, 
8th  ed. 


JO  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

eration,  means,  that  God  is  unknowable 
to  the  "Reason"  or  "Understanding" 
of  man ;  but  is  nevertheless  apprehen- 
sible through  the  "  Practical  Reason  "  or 
through  "  Faith. "  Tennyson  takes  essen- 
tially the  same  position.^  That  is,  our 
poet  regards  God  in  his  essential  being 
and  nature  as  unknowable.  He  is  not  an 
object  of  proof  or  knowledge,  but  rather 
an  object  of  faith.  He  makes  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  knowing  mind  and  be- 
lieving mind.  The  Agnostic  is  right 
when  he  says  God  is  the  unprovable  —  the 
unknowable.  But  he  is  wrong  when  he 
affirms  that,  therefore,  the  human  mind  is 
shut  out  from  God  —  that  He  is  an  unat- 
tainable Reality  to  the  mind  of  man. 
^  Faith  transcends  reason,  and  lays  hold 
upon  God.  Knowledge  deals  with  the 
phenomenal,  but  faith  deals  with  the 
noumenal.  There  are  two  poems  in  which 
this  position  is  especially  revealed,   and 

1  So  do  his  contemporaries,  Carlyle,  in  Sarlor 
Resartus;  and  Browning,  in  La  Saisiaz,  Ferishtalis 
Farleies,  Francis  Furini,  etc. 


God  J I 

these  poems  are  peculiarly  personal. 
They  are  In  Memortam^  and  T/ie  Ancient 
Sage.  In  the  prologue  to  I?i  Memoriamy 
which  was  written  practically  after  the 
rest  of  the  poem  was  completed,  and 
which,  in  a  sense,  seems  to  sum  up  his 
belief  after  many  years  of  struggle  with 
doubt,  he  says :  there  is  a  domain  of 
knowledge  and  a  domain  of  faith.  These 
are  not  contradictory.  The  domain  of 
faith  merely  lies  beyond  the  reach  of 
knowledge.  Knowledge  "  is  of  things 
we  see."     It  is  capable  of  growth,  — 

"  A  beam  in  darkness,  let  it  grow." 

But  it  is  always  limited  to  "things  we 
see."  Of  course  he  means  by  "seeing" 
here,  not  merely  sense-perception,  but 
also  the  "seeing"  of  the  reason — -what 
we  ordinarily  call  proof.  Knowledge  is 
confined  to  what  can  be  known  through 
the  senses,  and  to  what  can  be  rationally 
inferred  or  demonstrated.  l^ut  l)cyond 
the  limits  of  sense  and  reason  there  lies 


^2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

I  the  great  world  of  reality,  which  can  be 
entered  alone  by  faith.  This  distinction 
is  manifest  in  the  very  first  verse  of  the 
prologue :  — 

"Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace, 
Beheving  where  we  cannot  prove." 

Here,  in  the  poet's  judgment,  is  a  great 
reality —  God  revealed  in  Christ  —  which 
is  a  reality  to  be  grasped  by  faith  alone. 
It  is  unprovable,  so  we  must  believe 
"where  we  cannot  prove."  Later  in  the 
prologue,  addressing  this  same  reality, 
God  in  Christ,  he  says :  —  . 

"  We  have  but  faith :  we  cannot  know ; 
For  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see ; 
And  yet  we  trust  it  comes  from  thee, 
A  beam  in  darkness :  let  it  grow." 

As  we  shall  see  later,  this  distinction 
which  he  makes  between  faith  and 
knowledge,  and  which  he  applies  here  to 
the  mind's  relation  to  God  as  revealed  in 
Christ,   is  an  indication  of   his  views  in 


God  jj 

other  portions  of  In  Meniorianty  con- 
cerning the  mind's  capacity  to  know 
God  in  His  metaphysical  nature. 

When  we  turn  to  The  Ancient  Sage^ 
which  is  one  of  the  most  philosophical  of 
his  poems,  we  find  this  position  presented 
in  quite  an  elaborate  form.  •  This  poem 
is  pronounced  by  Miss  Weld,  Tennyson's 
niece,  to  be  even  more  subjective  than  In 
Memorianz}  And  Tennyson  h  imself  wrote 
concerning  it:  "The  whole  poem  is  very 
personal.  The  passages  about  *  Faith ' 
and  the  *  Passion  of  the  Past '  were  more 
especially  my  own  personal  feelings."^ 
The  poem  represents  a  youth  "  worn  from 
wasteful  living,"  in  conversation  with  an 
ancient  sage.  The  youth  has  in  his  hand 
"a  scroll  of  verse."  The  sage  asks  the 
privilege  of  reading  it.  It  contains 
agnostic  and  materialistic  views  of  God, 
life,  and  immortality.  With  reference  to 
God  it  says  :  — 

^  Contemporary  Review,  1S93. 
^  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  319. 


j^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  How  far  thro'  all  the  bloom  and  brake 

That  nightingale  is  heard  ! 
What  power  but  the  bird's  could  make 

This  music  in  the  bird  ? 
How  summer-bright  are  yonder  skies, 

And  earth  as  fair  in  hue ! 
And  yet  what  sign  of  aught  that  lies 

Behind  the  green  and  blue  ? 
But  man  to-day  is  fancy's  fool 

As  man  hath  ever  been. 
The  nameless  Power,  or  Powers,  that  rule 

Were  never  heard  or  seen." 

Here  we  have  a  thorough-going  Agnosti- 
cism, and,  indeed,  one  of  its  lowest  forms, 
which  limits  all  knowledge  to  what  the 
senses  reveal.  It  hears  the  "music  in  the 
bird,"  but  can  recognise  no  other  Power  as 
the  author  of  it  than  the  power  of  the  bird 
itself.  It  sees  the  summer-brightness  of 
the  skies,  and  the  fair  hue  of  the  earth,  but 
to  it  the  heavens  declare  not  the  glory 
of  God,  nor  does  the  firmament  show  His 
handiwork.     Its  language  is  merely  — 

"  How  summer-bright  are  yonder  skies, 
And  earth  as  fair  in  hue  1 
And  yet  what  sign  of  aught  that  lies 
Behind  the  green  and  blue  ?  " 


God  js 

Man  is,  and  ever  has  been,  "fancy's  fool  " 
with  reference  to  that  which  lies  beyond 
the  domain  of  sense;  and,  so  far  as  sense 
is  concerned,  — 

"  The  nameless  Power,  or  Powers,  that  rule 
Were  never  heard  or  seen." 

Now  Tennyson,  through  the  reply  of  the 
sage,  rebukes  this  kind  of  Agnosticism. 
He  calls  attention  to  man's  inner  being, 
with  its  power  of  discernment,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  outer  being  of  sense, 
and  says  :  — ■ 

"  If  thou  would  'sthear  the  Nameless,  and  wilt  dive 
Into  the  Temple-cave  of  thine  own  self, 
There,  brooding  by  the  central  altar,  thou 
May  'st  haply  learn  the  Nameless  hath  a  voice. 
By  which  thou  wilt  abide,  if  thou  be  wise, 
As  if  thou  knewest,  tho'  thou  canst  not  know  ; 
For  Knowledge  is  the  swallow  on  the  lake 
That  sees  and  stirs  the  surface-shadow  there 
But  never  yet  hath  dipt  into  the  abysm, 
The  Abysm  of  all  Abysms,  beneath,  within 
The  blue  of  sky  and  sea,  the  green  of  earth, 
And  in  the  million-millionth  of  a  grain 
Which  cleft  and  cleft  again  for  evermore. 
And  ever  vanishing,  never  vanishes, 


j6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

To  me,  my  son,  more  mystic  than  myself, 
Or  even  than  the  Nameless  is  to  me. 

And  when  thou  sendest  thy  free   soul  thro 
heaven, 
Nor  understandest  bound  nor  boundlessness, 
Thou  seest  the  Nameless  of  the  hundred  names. 

And  if  the  Nameless  should  withdraw  from  all 
Thy  frailty  counts  most  real,  all  thy  world 
Might  vanish  like  thy  shadow  in  the  dark." 

Here  we  see  that  it  is  not  by  sense,  but 
by  diving  "  into  the  Temple-cave  "  of  one's 
own  being,  that  the  Nameless,  or  God,  is 
to  be  apprehended.  There  we  learn  that 
the  Nameless  has  a  voice.  Nor,  looking 
at  the  outer  world,  is  it  by  knowledge 
that  God  is  to  be  found,  — 

"  For  Knowledge  is  the  swallow  on  the  lake  " 

merely  skimming  along  the  surface ;  never 
dipping  into  the  abysm.  Dip  into  the 
abysm,  and,  in  your  failure  to  understand 
its  bounds  or  boundlessness,  it  is  then 
that  your  soul  sees  God. 

But  the  sage  continues  to  read  the 
"scroll  of  verse,"  which  persists  in  un- 
folding its  agnostic  positions. 


God  3j 

"  And  since  —  from  when  this  earth  began  — 
The  Nameless  never  came 
Among  us,  never  spake  with  man, 
And  never  named  the  Name  "  — 

Here  the  sage  stops  to  make  a  reply, 
in  which  he  calls  attention  to  the  limits 
of  the  demonstrating  or  proving  mind,  and 
to  the  province  of  faith. 

"Thou  canst  not  prove  the  Nameless,  O  my  son, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  the  world  thou  movest  in, 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  thou  art  body  alone. 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  spirit  alone, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  both  in  one : 
Thou  canst  not  prove  thou  art  immortal,  no 
Nor  yet  that  thou  art  mortal  —  nay  my  son, 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  I,  who  speak  with 

thee, 
Am  not  thyself  in  converse  with  thyself. 
For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  disproven." 

Here  the  limits  of  rational  proof  are 
pointed  out :  there  are  a  great  many 
things,  some  of  which  we  regard  as  most 
real  and  true,  which  neither  admit  of  proof 
nor  disproof.  They  do  not  lie  witlun  the 
domain  of  knowledge,  — of  that  which  is 


j8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

capable  of  rational  proof  or  demonstration, 
—  nor,  indeed,  within  the  domain  of  dis- 
proof. They  belong  not  to  the  field  of 
sense  or  reason.  God  is  one  of  these 
realities.  What  then.?  Complete  Agnos- 
ticism? No!  Man  is  more  than  sense 
and  reason.  He  is  believing  soul.  He 
has  the  power  of  faith.  "Wherefore," 
says  the  sage,  — 

"  thou  be  wise," 
since  — 

"  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  disproven : 

Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt, 
And  cling  to  Faith  beyond  the  forms  of  Faith ! 
She  reels  not  in  the  storm  of  warring  words, 
She  brightens  at  the  clash  of '  Yes  '  and  '  No,' 
She  sees  the  Best  that  glimmers  thro'  the  Worst, 
She  feels  the  Sun  is  hid  but  for  a  night. 
She  spies  the  summer  thro'  the  winter  bud, 
She  tastes  the  fruit  before  the  blossom  falls, 
She  hears  the  lark  within  the  songless  egg, 
She     finds    the     fountain    where     they    wail'd 
'  Mirage  ' !  " 

The  lesson  is  taught  here  that  there  is 
a  power  of  mind  which  sees  what  sense 


God 


39 


/and  reason  cannot   see.     And,   so  far  as 
^  it  concerns  the  question  under  considera- 
tion, we  are  told  that  — ■ 

"  Thou  canst  not  prove  the  Nameless," 

but  we  are  not,  therefore,  to  doubt  his 
reality,  but  rather  to  "cling  to  Faith." 
She  penetrates  through  the  veil  of  sense 
and  reason;  she  sees  the  reality  from 
which    they  are  shut   out. 

But,  turning  again  to  the  "scroll  of 
verse,"  it  continues  with  reference  to 
God:  — 

"  What  Power  ?  aught  akiif  to  Mind, 
The  mind  in  me  and  you  ? 
Or  power  as  of  the  Gods  gone  blind 
Who  see  not  what  they  do  ? " 

That  is,  it  is  asked  whether  this  Power 
behind  the  veil  of  sense  is  a  mind  like 
ourselves,  or,  notirtg  the  imperfection  of 
the  world,  whether  it  is  merely  a  blind, 
unconscious,  or,  it  may  be,  irrational, 
blundering  power. 

The  sage  replies,   that  there  are  some 


^o  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

who,  despite  the  defects,  can  only  account 
for  *'this  house  of  ours"  by  attributing 
its  workmanship  to  the  Gods.  But  in 
this  answer  the  poet  again  tells  us  that 
God  is  not  known,  but  only  felt. 

"  But  some  in  yonder  city  hold,  my  son, 
That  none  but  Gods  could  build  this  house  of 

ours, 
So  beautiful,  vast,  various,  so  beyond 
All  work  of  man,  yet,  like  all  work  of  man, 

; A  beauty  with  defect till  That  which  knows. 

And  is  not  known,  but  felt  thro'  what  we  feel 

^  Within  ourselves  is  highest,  shall  descend 
On  this  half-deed,  and  shape  it  at  the  last 
According  to  the  Highest  in  the  Highest." 

But  the  Agnosticism  in  the  scroll  con- 
tinues. It  affirms  Time  to  be  the  only 
Power  and  Ruler  in  the  world. 

"  What  Power  but  the  Years  that  make 

And  break  the  vase  of  clay, 
And  stir  the  sleeping  earth,  and  wake 

The  bloom  that  fades  away  t 
What  rulers  but  the  Days  and  Hours 

That  cancel  weal  with  woe, 
And  wind  the  front  of  youth  with  flowers. 

And  cap  our  age  with  snow  ?  " 


God  ^i 

But  the  sage  again  calls  attention  to 
the  limits  or  superficiality  of  knowledge. 
Time  is  merely  a  conditioning  form  of 
knowledge.  It  is  relative  —  subjective. 
It  does  not  apply  to  reality.  The  mind, 
hampered  by  this  form  of  Time,  can, 
therefore,  only  know  a  phenomenal  world. 
The  unfortunate  results  of  our  mental  im- 
potency  —  of  knowledge  as  conditioned  by 
the  Time-form  —  are  seen  in  our  views 
of  Deity,  to  whom  the  Time-category  is 
not  applicable. 

"  The  days  and  hours  are  ever  glancing  by, 
And  seem  to  flicker  past  thro'  sun  and  shade, 
Or  short,  or  long,  as  Pleasure  leads,  or  Pain  ; 
But    with     the     Nameless    is     nor    Day    nor 

Hour; 
Tho'  we,  thin  minds,  who  creep  from  thought  to 

thought, 
Break  into  'Thens'  and  'Whens'  the  Eternal 

Now : 
This  double  seeming  of  the  single  workl !  — 
My  words  are  like  the  babblings  in  a  dream 
Of  nightmare,  when    the  babblings    break    the 

dream. 
But  thou  be  wise  in  this  dream-world  of  ours, 


/p  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Ndr  take  thy  dial  for  thy  deity, 

But  make  the  passing  shadow  serve  thy  will."  ^ 

We  see  thus  that  in  these  two  great 
poems,    III  Mefnoriaifiy  and    The  Ancient 

1  This  subjectivity  and  relativity  of  Time,  with  its 
inapplicability  to  the  Deity,  is  a  positive  position  with 
Tennyson.  Several  times,  before  writing  The  Ancient 
Sage,  he  calls  our  attention  to  it  in  his  poetry.  In  The 
Princess ^  h  e  says  :  — 

"  To  your  question  now, 
Which  touches  on  the  workman  and  his  work. 
Let  there  be  light  and  there  was  light :  't  is  so  : 
For  was,  and  is,  and  will  be,  are  but  is ; 
And  all  creation  is  one  act  at  once, 
The  birth  of  light :  but  we  that  are  not  all, 
As  parts,  can  see  but  parts,  now  this,  now  that, 
And  live,  perforce,  from  thought  to  thought,  and  make 
One  act  a  phantom  of  succession  :  thus 
Our  weakness  somehow  shapes  the  shadow,  Time." 

The  poet  takes  the  same  position  in  regard  to  the 
subjective  or  relative  nature  of  Time  in  De  Profimdis; 
denying  its  applicability  to  God.  The  spirit  of  the  newly 
born  child  is  spoken  of  as  follows :  — 

"  O  dear  Spirit  half-lost 
In  thine  own  shadow  and  this  fleshly  sign 
That  thou  art  thou —  who  wailest  being  born 
And  banish'd  into  mystery,  and  the  pain 
Of  this  divisible-indivisible  world 
Among  the  numerable-innumerable 
Sun,  sun,  and  sun,  thro'  finite-infinite  space 
In  finite-infinite  Time —  our  mortal  veil 
And  shatter'd  phantom  of  that  infinite  One,"  etc. 


God  ^j 

Sage^  Tennyson  draws  a  distinction  be- 
tween knowledge,  which  deals  with  the 
phenomenal^   and  faith,  which  deals  with  .M- 

the  noumenal.  He  affirms  God,  and,  as  *  | 
'-  we  shall  see  later,  immortality,  to  be  the 
real  world  —  not  to  be  apprehended  by 
the  knowing  mind,  but  by  the  believing 
soul.  They  belong,  not  to  the  province 
of  the  knowable,  but  to  the  province  of_  j 
the,  believable. 

Now,  this  position  was  not  dogmatically 
or  uncritically  assumed  by  Tennyson. 
He  thought  earnestly  on  this  subject.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  he  was  familiar  with 
the  so-called  "proofs"  of  the  being  and 
nature  of  God  as  they  appear  in  Modern 
Philosophy.  For,  of  the  writers  with 
whose  works  we  have  found  him  ac- 
quainted, Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and 
Kant  have  respectively  discussed  one  or 
more  of  them.  Of  these  "proofs"  or 
arguments,  the  teleological  or  design 
argument  has  always  seemed  the  most 
convincing.       It   points   to  the   apparent 


/J.4.  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

order  and  harmony,  symmetry  and  propor- 
tion, adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  in  the 
world,  as  evidences  of  design  or  purpose, 
and  infers  from  these  the  intelligence  and 
rationality  of  the  World-Ground,  or  God. 
Because  of  the  prevalence  of  the  mechani- 
cal conception  of  nature  in  Tennyson's 
time,  the  design  argument  figured  con- 
spicuously in  the  scientific,  philosophical, 
and  theological  controversies  of  the  age. 
As  a  "proof  "  of  the  existence  of  an  intel- 
ligent Deity  the  argument  had  little  force 
with  Tennyson.  This  is  evident  from 
the  following:  — 

"  That  which  we  dare  invoke  to  bless  ; 

Our  dearest  faith  ;  our  ghastliest  doubt ; 
He,  They,  One,  All ;  within,  without ; 
The  Power  in  darkness  whom  we  guess ; 

"  I  found  Him  not  in  world  or  sun. 
Or  eagle's  wing,  or  insect's  eye." 

Here  the  poet  confesses  that  he  cannot 
find  God  as  Personal  Intelligence  in 
Nature.  The  order  and  harmony  of  the 
"worlds"  and  "suns"  have  usually  been 


1 


God  ^5 

regarded  by  teleologists  as  constituting 
strong  evidence  in  favor  of  their  position. 
But  Tennyson  says,  — 

"  I  found  Him  not  in  world  or  sun." 

The  wing  of  the  bird  has  also  been  used 
as  a  striking  example  of  ** final  cause." 
Huxley  said  that  the  difference  between 
the  teleologist  and  mechanist  is  seen  in 
this:  the  former  says  that  the  bird  has 
wings  in  order  that  it  may  fly;  whereas 
the  latter  says  that  the  bird  flies  because 
it  has  wings.  But  Tennyson  says,  he 
finds  Him  not  in  "eagle's  wing."  Fur- 
thermore, the  eye  has,  with  most  theistic 
writers,  been  regarded  as  a  classic  exam- 
ple of  design  or  purpose  in  nature.  It 
seems  to  reveal  a  remarkable  adaptation 
of  means  to  end  —  of  organ  to  function. 
But  despite  this,  Tennyson  finds  Him  not 
in  "  insect's  eye." 

Indeed,  Tennyson  does  not  find  Nature 
revealing  design  or  purpose.  His  poetry 
reveals    the    fact    that    he    appealed    to 


/J.6  Tide  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Nature  more  than  once  on  this  subject, 
and  always  with  the  same  result.  In  the 
fifty-fourth  and  fifty-fifth  poems  of  In 
Memoriam,  where  the  question  of.  a  pur- 
pose in  Nature  is  under  consideration,  he 
confesses  inadequacy  of  knowledge  with 
reference  to  a  purpose  of  God  in  Nature, 
and  the  necessity  of  faith  in  order  to  get 
at  Nature's  "secret  meaning."  In  con- 
sidering the  final  goal  of  ill  (in  the 
form  of  pain  and  sin),  and  the  tremendous 
"profusion  and  waste"  in  Nature,  he 
says :  — 

"  Oh,  yet  we  trust  [not  know]  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood  ; 

"  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroy'd, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete ; 

"  That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain  ; 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivell'd  in  a  fruitless  fire. 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain.'* 


God  ^y 

But  in  regard  to  all  this  we  have  no  knowl- 
edge, but  only  trust.     For  he  adds:  — 

"  Behold,  we  know  not  anything  ; 

I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last  —  far  off  —  at  last,  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring." 

And    then   follow    those    most    pathetic 
words :  — 

"So  runs  niy  dream  :  but  what  am  I  ? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night : 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light : 

And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

And,  again,  in  the  fifty-fifth  poem, 
where  he  is  considering  the  question  of 
immortality  from  the  standpoint  of  God's 
purpose  in  Nature.  He  does  not  find 
Nature  revealing  a  purpose  of  God;  or,  if 
anything,  revealing  hostility  to  His  pur- 
pose as  manifest  in  the  soul  of  man. 

"  The  wish,  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave, 
Derives  it  not  from  what  we  have 
The  likest  God  within  the  soul  ? 


/J.8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  Are  God  and  Nature  then  at  strife, 

That  Nature  lends  such  evil  dreams  ? 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life  ; 

**That  I,  considering  everywhere 
Her  secret  meaning  in  her  deeds, 
And  finding  that  of  fifty  seeds 
She  often  brings  but  one  to  bear, 

"  I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod, 

And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 
Upon  the  great  world's  altar-stairs 
That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God, 

"  I  stretch  lame  hands  of  faith,  and  grope, 
And  gather  dust  and  chaff,  and  call 
To  what  I  feel  is  Lord  of  all. 
And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope." 

But  he  seems  also  to  be  suspicious  of 
the  other  theistic  arguments,  if  we  rightly 
interpret  him.  These  "prove"  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Perfect  Being  from  the  neces- 
sary idea  of  such  a  being  which  we  possess ; 
and,  secondly,  the  existence  of  an  eternal 
First  Cause  from  the  existence  of  a  finite, 
changing,  dependent  world.  In  regard  to 
these  arguments  Tennyson  says :  — 


God  ^p 

"  I  found  Him  not  in  world  or  sun, 
Or  eagle's  wing,  or  insect's  eye ; 
A^or  thy'o'  the  questions  ?rien  may  try^ 
The  petty  cobwebs  we  have  sputi.'''' 

It  seems  quite  probable  that  Tennyson 
here,  in  the  words  "the  questions  men 
may  try,"  refers  to  the  other  philosophical 
arguments  for  the  existence  of  God.  They 
occur  in  immediate  connection  with  the 
words  in  which  he  rejects  the  design  argu- 
ment. They  fail  to  reveal  God  to  him. 
As  "  proofs  "  they  carry  no  force  of  convic- 
tion. So  utterly  do  they  fall  short  of 
their  purpose  that  the  poet  speaks  of  them 
almost  contemptuously.  He  pronounces 
them  to  be  nothing  more  than  — 

*'  The  petty  cobwebs  we  have  spun." 

This  rejection  of  the  traditional 
"proofs"  of  the  being  and  nature  of  God 
is  in  harmony  with  his  general  position 
already  stated.      It  means  — 

"  Thou  canst  not  prove  the  Nameless." 

It  means,  God  is  — 

4 


5^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  That  which  knows, 
And  is  not  known." 

It  means,  concerning  God,  — 

"  We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know." 

It  means,   God    is,   so   far   as    sense  and 
reason  are  concerned,  — 

"  The  Power  in  darkness  whom  we  guess." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  these  very 
poems  which  reveal  the  impotency  of  the 
mind  so  far  as  its  capacity  to  know  God 
is  concerned,  also  point  out  the  necessity 
of  falling  back  upon  another  power  of 
man  —  faith.  If  an  "intelligible  First 
Cause"  be  not  "deducible  from  physical 
phenomena,"  as  Tennyson  affirmed,  in  his 
vote  on  this  question  when  under  consid- 
eration in  the  society  of  "Apostles,"  in 
Cambridge;^  if  He  be  not  revealed  "in 
world  or  sun,"  or  "eagle's  wing,"  or  "in- 
sect's eye;"  if  He  be  not  disclosed  to  us 
"  in  the  questions  men  may  try,"  He  is  re- 
vealed to   man   through   faith.     The   In- 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  44,  note. 


God  57 

visible  to  the  eye  of  sense  becomes 
visible  to  the  eye  of  faith.  The  unprov- 
able and  unknowable  to  the  demonstrat- 
ing reason  becomes  the  apprehensible  to 
the  believing  soul.  Wherefore,  we  are 
enjoined  to  — 

"  Cling  to  Faith  beyond  the  forms  of  Faith." 

We  can  believe  "where  we  cannot  pr#ve." 

And     what    kind   of    God    does    faith 

reveal.'*      According   to    Tennyson,  faith 

reveals  2^  J)ersonal  God.     This  is  evident 

when  we  glance  at  the  following  poems. ^ 

Take,  for  example,  his  little  poem  entitled 

TJie  Hiivian  Cry  :  — 

I. 
"  Hallowed  be  Thy  name  —  Halleluiah  ! 
Infinite  Ideality ! 
Immeasurable  Reality ! 
Infinite  Personality ! 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name  —  Halleluiah  !" 

1  The  distinction  between  Christian  faith  and  philo- 
/  sophical  faith  is  not  very  marked  in  Tennyson.  In 
j  some  of  these  poems  he  undoubtedly  refers  to  Chris- 
tian faith.  In  In  Memoriam,  he  refers  now  to  one,  then 
to  the  other.  In  The  Ancient  S>i,i^e,  he  ajiparently  re- 
fers to  ])hilosophical  faith.  However,  wilh  him,  their 
essential  content  is  the  same. 


li 


^2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

II. 

<*  We  feel  we  are  nothing,  —  for  all  is  Thou  and  in 

Thee  ; 
We  feel  we  are  something,  —  that  also  has  come 

from  Thee  ; 
We  know  we  are  nothing,  —  but  Thou  wilt  help 

us  to  be. 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name  — Halleluiah  !" 

Again,  the  entire  prologue  to  hi  Memo- 
nam  declares  God  as  personal  being  to  be 
revealed  to  us  by  faith.  Indeed,  it  recog- 
nises God  as  revealed  in  the  person  of 
Christ :  — 

"  Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
;  By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace, 

;  Believing  where  we  cannot  prove ; 

"Thine  are  these  orbs  of  light  and  shade  ; 
Thou  madest  Life  in  man  and  brute ; 
Thou  madest  Death  ;  and  lo,  thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skull  which  thou  hast  made. 

"  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why, 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die ; 
And  thou  hast  made  him  :  thou  art  just. 


God  S3 

*'  Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 

The  highest,  hoHest  manhood,  thou  : 
Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how ; 
Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  thine. 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day  ; 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be: 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  thee, 
And  thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they. 

"  We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know  ; 
For  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see  ; 
And  yet  we  trust  incomes  from  thee, 
A  beam  in  darkness  :  leiit  grow. 

"  Let  knowledge  grow  from  more  to  more, 
But  more  of  reverence  in  us  dwell ; 
That  mind  and  soul,  according  well, 
May  make  one  music  as  before, 

"  But  vaster.     We  are  fools  and  slight ; 
We  mock  thee  when  we  do  not  fear : 
But  help  thy  foolish  ones  to  bear ; 
Help  thy  vain  worlds  to  bear  thy  light. 

"  Forgive  what  seem'd  my  sin  in  me  ; 

What  seem'd  my  worth  since  I  began; 
For  merit  lives  from  man  to  man. 
And  not  from  man,  O  Lord,  to  thee. 

"  Forgive  my  grief  for  one  removed, 
Thy  creature,  whom  1  found  so  fair. 
I  trust  he  lives  in  thee,  and  there 
I  find  him  worthier  to  be  loved. 


5^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  Forgive  these  wild  and  wandering  cries, 
Confusions  of  a  wasted  youth  ; 
Forgive  them  where  they  fail  in  truth, 
And  in  thy  wisdom  make  me  wise." 

This  is  a  prayer.  The  very  prayer  itself 
involves  the  recognition  of  a  personal 
God  revealed  in  Christ.  Every  verse  of 
the  prayer,  except  one,  distinctly  specifies 
as  personal  the  nature  of  the  Being  ad- 
dressed. And  the  opening  verse  tells  us 
He  is  embraced  alone  by  faith.  And  so 
in  the  poems  entitled  Doubt  and  Prayer^ 
Faith,  and  God  and  the  Universe,  faith 
apprehends  God  as  personal  being.  So 
far,  then,  as  the  being  and  nature  of  God 
are  concerned,  according  to  Tennyson, 
they  are  not  matters  of  proof  or  knowl- 
edge, but  of  faith. 

Now,  when  we  try  to  further  determine 
the  nature  of  God  as  Love,  we  find  our 
poet  holding  the  same  position.  God's 
nature  as  Love  is  not  a  matter  of  knowl- 
edge, but  of  faith.  He  struggled  with 
this   question   also    in  the  light  of  what 


God  SS 

science  and  philosophy  had  to  say.  He 
was  greatly  interested  in  the  theory  of 
organic  evolution,  and  in  the  Darwinian 
explanation  of  it.  This  "struggle  for 
existence,"  with  its  dreadful  suffering,  is 
an  awful  fact.  Nature,  in  her  onward 
course,  has  left  a  trail  of  blood  reaching 
far  back  into  the  ages.  Tennyson  was 
profoundly  impressed  by  this  fact.  He 
made  his  appeal  to  Nature  to  find  out 
whether  the  great  Author  of  Nature  is 
essential  Love.  Such  an  appeal  seemed 
to  indicate  that  He  is  not.  There  is  a 
very  significant  statement  by  him  on  this 
point  recorded  in  the  Memoir.  He  said, 
with  reference  to  the  pain  and  imperfec- 
tion of  the  world,  which  at  times  almost 
impelled  him  to  doubt  the  intelligence 
and  love  of  God :  "  Yet  God  is  love,  tran- 
scendent, all-pervading!  We  do  not  get 
this  faith  from  Nature  or  the  world.  If 
we  look  at  Nature  alone,  full  of  perfec- 
tion and  imperfection,  she  tells  us  that 
God  is  disease,  murder,  and  rapine.     We 


^6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

get  this  faith  from  ourselves,  from  what 
is  highest  within  us,  which  recognises 
that  there  is  not  one  fruitless  pang,  just 
as  there  is  not  one  lost  good.  "^  This 
faith  is  the  trust  he  attributes  to  man  in 
the  words  quoted  above,  and  which  he 
speaks  of  in  the  fifty-fourth  poem  of  In 
Memoriam :  — 

"  Oh  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,"  etc. 

This  appeal  to  Nature  was,  of  course, 
from  the  standpoint  of  sense  and  reason. 
In  Tennyson's  case  it  was  often  made 
through  science,  for,  as  previously  stated, 
he  was  a  careful  student  of  science.  But 
his  appeal  results  in  no  proof  of  God's 
love.  This  attribute  of  God's  nature 
must  also  be  apprehended  by  faith.  Faith 
alone  can  discern  God  as  Love  in  the 
midst  of  the  physical  suffering  of  the 
world.  So  we  are  enjoined,  in  his  little 
poem  entitled  '^Wi,  to  — 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  314. 


God  57 

"  Doubt  no  longer  that  the  Highest  is  the  wisest 

and  the  best,  i    "J' 

Let  not  all  that  saddens  Nature  blight  thy  hope  J 
or  break  thy  rest, 

.     Quail  not  at  the  fiery  mountain,    at  the   ship- 
wreck, or  the  rolling 

Thunder,    or   the   rending    earthquake,   or    the 
famine,  or  the  pest !  " 

But  he  not  only  considered  this  problem 
of  the  love  of  God  from  the  standpoint  of 
suffering,  as  manifest  in  the  physical 
world,  but  also  from  the  standpoint  of  its 
broader  aspects,  as  treated  by  philosophy. 
He  took  into  consideration  the  mental 
suffering  of  the  world,  —  the  suffering 
caused  by  sin;  yea,  the  sin  itself.  Not 
only  the  "pangs  of  nature"  and  "taints 
of  blood,"  but  also  the  "defects  of 
doubt,"  "the  sins  of  will,"  etc.,  were 
considered  in  their  bearing  upon  the 
nature  and  character  of  God  as  Love. 
And  here  he  came  to  the  same  conclusion : 
that,  so  far  as  knowledge  is  concerned, 
we  cannot  find  God  as  Love  in  the  mental ;  _p  \ 
and   moral    evil  of   tlic  world.      We    can 


^S  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

only  find  him  as  such  through  hope,  trust, 
and  faith.  I7t  Memoriam,  taken  as  a 
whole,  evidences  this  position.  As  Ten- 
nyson himself  said  concerning  this  great 
poem  :  "  The  different  moods  of  sorrow  as 
in  a  drama  are  dramatically  given,  and 
my  conviction  that  fear,  doubts,  and  suffer- 
ing will  find  answer  and  relief  only 
through  Faith  in  a  God  of  Love."  ^ 

This,  too,  is  hinted  in  The  Ancient  Sage, 
The  "scroll  of  verse,"  to  which  reference 
has  been  made,  continues  to  point  to  evi- 
dence that  Time  is  the  great  Power  and 
Ruler  of  the  world,  and  presents  a  melan- 
choly description  of  His  fearful  ravages. 
To  this  the  sage  replies :  — 

'"  My  son,  the  world  is  dark  with  grief  and  graves, 
So  dark  that  men  cry  out  against  the  heavens." 

But  from  what  follows,  it  seems  the  sage 
means  to  intimate  that  this  is  merely 
the  world  as  it  appears  to  sense  and  rea- 
son. Faith,  however,  presents  a  different 
picture :  — 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  pp.  304,  305. 


God  jQ 

"  Who  knows  but  that  the  darkness  is  in  man  ? 
The  doors  of  Night  may  be  the  gates  of  Light  ; 
For  wert  thou  born  or  blind  or  deaf,  and  then 
Suddenly  heal'd,  how  would'st  thou  glory  in  all 
The  splendours  and  the  voices  of  the  world  ! 
And  we,  the  poor  earth's  dying  race,  and  yet 
No  phantoms,  watching  from  a  phantom  shore, 
Await  the  last  and  largest  sense  to  make 
The  phantom  walls  of  this  illusion  fade, 
And  show  us  that  the  world  is  wholly  fair." 

And  again,  in  one  of  his  later  poems, 
entitled  Doubt  and  Prayer^  the  fact  is 
pointed  out,  that  through  sin  we  are  led 
to  misinterpret  the  sorrowful  experiences 
of  life,  which  are  God's  providences, 
attributing  them  to  "Blind  Fate."  And 
the  poet  prays  that  he  may  learn  the  les- 
son of  faith  on  this  point,  which  is,  that 
Love,  not  "Blind  Fate,"  rules  the  world. 

"  Tho'  Sin,  too  oft,  when  smitten  by  Thy  rod, 
Rail  at  '  Blind  Fate '  with  many  a  vain  '  Alas  ! ' 
From  sin  thro'  sorrow  into  Thee  we  pass 
By  that  same  path  our  true  forefathers  trod  ; 
And  let  not  Reason  fail  me,  nor  the  sod 
Draw  from  my  death  Thy  living  flower  and  grass, 
Before  I  learn  that  Love,  which  is,  and  was 
My  Father,  and  my  Brother,  and  my  God  ! 


6o  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Steel  me  with  patience  !  soften  me  with  grief  ! 
Let  blow  tlje  trumpet  strongly  while  I  pray, 
Till  this  embattled  wall  of  unbelief 
My  prison,  not  my  fortress,  fall  away  ! 
Then,  if  thou  wiliest,  let  my  day  be  brief, 
So  Thou  wilt  strike  Thy  glory  thro'  the  day." 

The  Love  of  God,  then,  according  to 
Tennyson's  view,  is  rather  a  fact  of  faith 
than  an  object  of  knowledge.  And  this 
interpretation  of  his  poetry  is  corroborated 
by  external  evidence.  In  a  letter  to  Miss 
Emily  Sellwood,  afterward  Lady  Tenny- 
son, he  says :  "  *  Why  has  God  created  souls 
knowing  they  would  sin  and  suffer.'^'  a 
question  unanswerable.  Man  is  greater 
than  all  animals  because  he  is  capable  of 
moral  good  and  evil,  tho'  perhaps  dogs 
and  elephants,  and  some  of  the  higher 
mammalia  have  a  little  of  this  capability. 
God  might  have  made  me  a  beast ;  but  He 
thought  good  to  give  me  power,  to  set 
Good  and  Evil  before  me,  that  I  might 
shape  my  own  path.  The  happiness, 
resulting  from  this  power  well  exercised, 
must  in  the  end  exceed  the  mere  physical 


God  6j 

happiness  of  breathing,  eating,  and  sleep- 
ing like  an  ox.  Can  we  say  that  God  pre- 
fers higher  happiness  in  some  to  a  lower 
happiness  in  all?  It  is  a  hard  thing  that 
if  I  sin  and  fail  I  should  be  sacrificed  to 
the  bliss  of  the  Saints.  Yet  what  reason- 
able creature,  if  he  could  have  been  askt 
beforehand,  would  not  have  said,  '  Give 
me  the  metaphysical  power;  let  me  be  the 
lord  of  my  decisions;  leave  physical 
quietude  and  dull  pleasure  to  lower  lives  '  .-* 
All  souls,  methinks,  would  have  answered 
thus,  and  so  had  men  suffered  by  their 
own  choice,  as  now  by  the  necessity  of 
being  born  what  they  are,  but  there  is  no 
answer  to  these  questions  except  in  a  great 
hope  of  universal  good :  and  even  then  one 
might  ask,  why  has  God  made  one  to 
suffer  more  than  another,  why  is  it  not 
meted  equally  to  all?  Let  us  be  silent, 
for  we  know  nothing  of  these  things,  and 
we  trust  there  is  One  who  knows  all. 
God  cannot  be  cruel.  If  He  were,  the 
heart  could  only  find  relief  in  the  wildest 


62  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

blasphemies,  which  would  cease  to  be 
blasphemies.  God  must  be  all  powerful, 
else  the  soul  could  never  deem  Him 
worthy  of  her  highest  worship.  Let  us 
leave  it  therefore  to  God,  as  to  the  wisest. 
Who  knows  whether  revelation  be  not 
itself  a  veil  to  hide  the  glory  of  that 
Love  which  we  could  not  look  upon 
without  marring  our  sight,  and  our  onward 
progress } "  ^ 

On  the  question,  then,  of  the  nature  of 
God  as  Love,  we  find  Tennyson's  teaching 
to  be,  that  it  is  not  a  matter  of  knowledge, 
but  of  faith ;  and,  however  strong  be  the 
evidence  from  Nature  and  human  experi- 
ence to  the  contrary,  through  faith  we 
may  apprehend  God  as  Love;  through 
faith  we  may  be  enabled  — 

"  To  feel,  altho'  no  tongue  can  prove, 
That  every  cloud,  that  spreads  above 

\  And  veileth  love,  itself  is  love." 

\ 

Thus  we  have  seen  that  Tennyson  was 
in   sympathy  with  much  of   our  modern 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  pp.  170. 


God  6j 

science  and  philosophy  in  their  Agnosti- 
cism. God  is,  indeed,  "the  Unknown  and 
the  Unknowable."  But  it  is  important 
to  note,  that  he  did  not  rest  in  Agnos- 
ticism. He  regarded  it  as  merely  half 
the  truth  respecting  God,  and  man's 
capacity  to  reach  Him.  There  is  another 
side  to  man's  being.  This,  too,  has  its 
legitimate  domain  —  its  field  of  realities. 
This  is  faith.  And,  as  he  said  to  Locker- 
Lampson,  "Whatever  is  the  object  of 
Faith  cannot  be  the  object  of  Reason.  In 
fine.  Faith  must  be  our  guide."  ^  If,  as 
perceiving  mind  and  demonstrating  rea- 
son, man  is  limited  to  the  phenomenal;  as 
believing  soul,  he  can  transcend  these 
narrow  bounds  and  pass  from  the  "  shadow  " 
to  the  substance ;  from  the  appearance  to 
the  reality  —  to  the  Supreme  Reality 
"which  Faith  calls  God,  and  Philosophy 
calls  the  Absolute."  Faith  tells  us  that 
God  is;  that  He  is  Personal  Intelligence, 
and    that    He    is    Eternal    Love.      Thus 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  68,  C9. 


<5^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

did  our  poet  meet  the  Agnosticism  of  his 
age. 

But  Tennyson  really  reached  a  more 
speculative  conclusion  on  this  subject  than 
is  indicated  above.  He  dealt  not  merely 
with  the  Agnostic,  but  also  with  the 
Materialist;, and,  in  his  ontological  specu- 
lations, he  came  to  conclusions  with  refer- 
ence to  the  being  and  nature  of  God  in 
perfect  harmony  with  those  of  his  Faith 
Philosophy.  Let  us  take,  for  example, 
^that  speculative  poem  entitled  The  Higher 
'Pantheism.  This  poem  was  sent  by  Ten- 
nyson to  the  Metaphysical  Society,  pre- 
viously referred  to,  as  undoubtedly  ex- 
pressive of  his  own  personal  views.  It 
deals  with  the  problems  of  ontology, — 
the  ultimate  nature  of  reality,  and  the 
relation  of  the  finite  to  the  Infinite.  With 
reference  to  these  problems  we  find  him 
to  be  an  Idealist.  He  declares  all  reality, 
in  the  final  analysis,  to  be  mentality. 
That  is,  there  is  only  one  kind  of  being, 
and  that  is  Mind.     He  cancels  the  reality 


God  6j 

of  the  so-called  corporeal  or  material 
world,  — allowing  it  merely  a  phenomenal 
existence.  An  examination  of  the  poem 
makes  this  evident  at  once  :  — 

"The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills 
and  the  plains  — 
Are  not  these,  O  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who 
reigns  ? 

"  Is  not  the  Vision  He  ?  tho'  He  be  not  that  which 
He  seems  ? 
Dreams  are  true  while  they  last,  and  do  we  not 
live  in  dreams? 

"  Earth,  these  solid  stars,  this  weight  of  body  and 
limb, 
Are  they  not  sign  and  symbol  of  thy  division  from 
Him? 

"  Dark  is  the  world  to  thee  :  thyself  art  the  reason 
why ; 
For  is  He  not  all  but  that  which  has  power  to  feel 
*  I  am  r  ? 

"  Glory  about  thee,  without  thee  ;  and  thou  f  ulfillest 
thy  doom. 
Making  Him  broken  gleams,  and  a  stifled  splen- 
dour and  gloom. 

"Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with 
Spirit  can  meet  — 
Closer  is   He   than  breathing,  and    nearer  than 
hands  and  feet. 

S 


66  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  God  is  law,  say  the  wise  ;  O  Soul,  and  let  us 
rejoice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet  His 


voice. 


"  Law  is  God,  say  some ;  no  God  at  all,  says  the 
fool ; 
For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff 
bent  in  a  pool ; 

"  And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye  of 

man  cannot  see ; 
"  But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision  —  were 

it  not  He?  " 

The  most  thorough-going  Idealism  is 
revealed  in  this  poem.  The  reality  of 
corporeal  or  material  objects  is  annihi- 
lated, and  minds  only  are  affirmed  to  exist, 
—  the  Infinite  Mind  and  finite  minds. 

"  For  is  He  not  all  but  that  which  has  power  to 
feel  '  I  am  I '  ? " 

That  is,  God,  who  is  personal  (he  uses 
the  personal  pronoun),  is  all  but  self- 
conscious  finite  being,  — that  finite  being 
which  has  the  power  to  feel  "  I  am  I. " 
Corporeal  beings  have  no  such  power  of 
self-consciousness,    hence    they   have   no 


God  6y 

reality.  Only  self-conscious  being  really 
is.  All  else  is  merely  phenomenal. 
This  is,  of   course,    Idealism. 

But  the  form  of  Idealism,  whether  sub- 
jective or  objective,  revealed  in  this  poem, 
is  not  so  easily  determined.  Subjective 
Idealism  declares  corporeal  things  to  have 
no  other  reality  than  as  "ideas"  in  the 
mind.  As  Berkeley  affirmed,  their  being 
consists  in  their  being  perceived.  "  Their 
esse  is  pereipt.'"  ^  Cancel  mind,  and  there 
is  no  matter.  Objective  Idealism,  on  the 
other  hand,  affirms,  that  so-called  corporeal 
objects  have  something  more  than  mere 
subjective  existence  —  existence  merely 
as  "  ideas  "  in  the  perceiving  mind.  They 
have  an  objective  or  extra-mental  existence ; 
but  not  in  the  form  of  independent,  mate- 
rial things,  as  assumed  and  conceived  of 
by  uncritical  thought;  but  rather  as  defi- 
nite modes  or  forms  of  activity  or  energis- 
ing of  the  Infinite  IMind.      Of  these  two 

^  Of  the   Principles   of    Human    Knowledge,  pt.  i, 
sec.  3. 


68  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

kinds  of  Idealism,  Tennyson  leans  toward 
the  latter.  In  the  first  couplet  of  the 
above  poem,  such  supposed  substantial 
realities  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars, 
the  seas,  etc.,  are  represented  to  us  as 
having  only  the  being  of  a  "vision"  — 
they  are  the  soul's  "vision"  of  God. 
Now  the  word  vision  can  either  refer  to 
the  mental  act  of  perception,  or  to  the 
object  perceived.  In  both  instances  we 
might  have  subjective  Idealism,  because 
the  object  perceived  might  be  merely  a 
mental  one.  But  the  second  couplet  of 
the  poem  helps  us  in  our  interpretation. 
Here  he  evidently  uses  the  word  "  vision  " 
in  the  sense  of  the  object  perceived,  and 
indicates  it  to  be  an  extra-mental  object. 
He  identifies  the  "vision"  with  God 
himself. 

"Is   not  the   Vision   He?    tho'   He   be   not  that 
which  He  seems?  " 

And   again,    in    the   fourth    couplet,    he 
says : — 


God  6g 

"  Dark  is  the  world  to  thee :  thyself  art  the  reason 
why ; 
For  is  He  not  all  but  that  which  has  the  power 
to  feel 'I  am  I'?" 

And  again,  in  the  last  couplet :  — 

"  And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye  of 
man  cannot  see; 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision  —  were 
it  not  He  ? " 

But,  furthermore,  we  have  not  only 
Idealism,  and  probably  objective  Idealism, 
here;  but  also  Theistic  Idealism.  And 
this  is  important,  as  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tion under  consideration,  namely,  Tenny- 
son's view  of  the  nature  of  God.  There 
is  an  Idealism  which  is  Pantheism.  It 
holds  the  position,  that  all  being  is  one 
and  psychic  in  its  nature, — but  not  per- 
sonaL  It  cancels  both  the  personality  of 
God  and  of  man  —  making  man  merely  a 
mode  or  manifestation  of  the  Infinite. 
But  not  so  with  Tennyson.  His  "  Higher 
Pantheism "  is  not  Pantheism.  It  is 
Idealistic  Theism.      He  distinctly  affirms 


X 


*jo  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

all  being  to  be  personal  spirit.  And  there 
are  two  kinds  of  personal  spirit :  God, 
the  infinite  Spirit,  and  all  finite  beings 
which  have  the  power  of  self-conscious- 
ness ;  "  the  power  to  feel  'I  am  I. '  "  Every 
couplet  of  this  poem,  save  one,  uses  the 
personal  pronoun  in  speaking  of  God. 
And  the  third  and  fourth  couplets  espe- 
cially declare  the  distinct  individuality 
and  personality  of  the  finite  spirit. 

We  have,  then,  in  this  speculative  poem, 
both  a  declaration  against  Materialism 
and  against  Pantheism.  Matter  has  no 
reality.  If  it  exist  at  all,  it  has  only 
phenomenal  existence.  Mind,  or  self- 
conscious  being,  is  the  only  true  reality. 
And  there  are  two  kinds  of  minds  or  per- 
sonal spirits,  — the  Infinite  and  the  finite; 
and  their  intimate  relation  is  declared  in 
those  beautiful  words  :  — 

"  Speak  to  Him   thou  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit 
with  Spirit  can  meet  — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and   nearer  than 
hands  and  feet." 


GoJ  yi 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  other  poems,  we  find 
this  idealistic  view  of  the  ultimate  nature 
of  reality  at  least  indirectly  confirmed  by 
his  repeated  affirmation  that  the  so-called 
material  world  has  merely  a  phenomenal 
existence.  He  pronounces  it  a  "phan- 
tom "  and  a  "  shadow."  In  De  Profimdis, 
the  true  world  is  not  the  one  we  see.  We 
see  merely  a  "  shadow-world. '*  The  child 
is  represented  as  coming  — 

"  out  of  the  deep, 
From  that  true  world  within  the  world  we  see. 
Whereof  our  world  is  but  the  bounding  shore  —  " 

Man  is  represented  here  as  having  — 

"  drawn  to  this  shore  lit  by  the  suns  and  moons 
And  all  the  shadows." 

In  The  Ancient  Sage,  there  are  several 
references  to  this  "phantom-shore,"  or 
"  shadow-world. "  He  preserves  our  reality 
as  spirits,  but  affirms  \.\\q phanto7n  7iatnre 
of  the  world.      He  says  :  — 

"  And  we,  the  poor  earth's  dying  race,  and  yet 
No  phantoms,  watchiiic;  from  a  phantom  shore." 


^2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Again,  in  describing  a  trance  experience, 

to  which  he  was  subject,  he  speaks  of  the 

nature  of  this  experience  as  one  of  "utter 

clearness." 

"  and  thro'  loss  of  Self 
The  gain  of  such  large  life  as  match'd  with  ours 
Were  Sun  to  spark  —  unshadowable  in  words, 
Themselves  but  shadows  of  a  shadow-world." 

Again,  in  the  poem  entitled  God  and 
the  Universe^  he  refers  to  "the  myriad 
world"  as  God's  "shadow":  — 

"  Spirit,  nearing  yon  dark  portal  at  the  limit  of  thy 

human  state, 
Fear  not  thou  the  hidden  purpose  of  that  Power 

which  alone  is  great, 
Nor  the  myriad  world,   His  shadow,   nor    the 

Silent  Opener  of  the  Gate." 

In  all  of  these  references,  reality  is  denied 
to  the  corporeal  world.  It  is  merely  a 
"phantom" — a  "shadow"  of  God,  the 
Spiritual. 

This  idealistic  conception  of  reality  is 
also  brought  out  in  a  number  of  conversa- 
tions  of   Tennyson  which   have  been  re- 


God  7j 

corded.  Mr.  Frederick  Locker-Lampson 
informs  us  that,  in  a  conversation  he  once 
had  with  Tennyson,  while  gazing  upon 
the  Alps,  he  said,  "  Perhaps  this  earth, 
and  all  that  is  on  it  —  storms,  mountains, 
cataracts,  the  sun  and  the  skies  —  are  the 
Almighty:  in  fact,  that  such  is  our  petty 
nature,  we  cannot  see  Him,  but  we  see 
His  shadow,  as  it  were,  a  distorted 
shadow.  "1  Again,  Mrs.  Bradley  has  a 
record  in  her  diary  of  words  uttered  by 
Tennyson  in  her  presence,  in  January, 
1869,  as  follows:  "Yes,  it  is  true  that 
there  are  moments  when  the  flesh  is 
nothing  to  me,  when  I  feel  and  know  the 
flesh  to  be  the  vision,  God  and  the  Spirit- 
ual the  only  real  and  true.  Depend  upon 
,  it,  the  Spiritual  is  the  real :  it  belongs  to 
'  one  more  than  the  hand  and  foot.  You 
j  may  tell  me  that  my  hand  and  my  foot 
are  only  imaginary  symbols  of  my  exist- 
ence, I  could  believe  you ;  but  you  never, 
never  can  convince  me  that  the  /is  not  an 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  68. 


7^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

eternal  Reality,  and  that  the  Spiritual  is 
not  the  true  and  real  part  of  me."  ^  His 
son  informs  us,  that  in  one  of  his  "  last 
talks"  he  said,  "Spirit  seems  to  me  to_ 
be  the  reality  of  the  world.  "^  Again, 
talking  with  Frederick  Locker-Lampson 
"  of  the  materialists, "  he  said  :  "  After  all, 
what  is  matter?"  "I  think  it  is  merely 
the  shadow  of  something  greater  than 
itself,  and  which  we  poor,  shortsighted 
creatures  cannot  see."^ 

The  only  reality,  then,  in  Tennyson's 
conception,  is  mind, — the  Infinite  and  the 
finite.  God  is,  and  He  is  personal.  Man 
is,  and  he  is  personal.  God  and  Man 
as  personal  being  constitute  the  only 
reality,  and  between  them  exists  a  close 
relationship:  — 

"Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He   hears,  and  Spirit 
with  Spirit  can  meet  — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than 
hands  and  feet." 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.  p.  90.  2  ibid.,  p.  424. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  69. 


God  75 

Thus  we  see,  that  Tennyson,  in  his  more 
speculative  thinking,  came  to  essentially 

^>  the  same  conclusions,  with  reference  to 
the    being   and    nature  of    God,  as  those 

■  attained  in  his  Philosophy  of  Faith. 


FREEDOM 

Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how ; 
Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  thine. 

In  Memoriam,  Prologue,  4. 

.  .  .  who  wrought 
Not  Matter,  nor  the  finite-infinite, 
But  this  main-miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world. 

De  Profundis,  II.,  ii. 

/^^NE  of  the  fundamental  problems 
^^  which  has  had,  in  nearly  every 
age,  a  fascination  for  the  speculative 
mind,  is  the  problem  of  freedom,  or 
free-will.  From  the  time  of  Socrates 
down  to  the  present,  it  has  seriously  en- 
gaged the  philosophic  world.^  Its  promi- 
nence in  the  scientific,  philosophical,  and 
theological  thinking  of  Tennyson's  age  did 
not   fail   to    arrest   his   attention,  and,   in 

1  See  A.   Alexander,   Theories  of  the  Will  in  the 
History  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1898. 


Freedom  yj 

consequence,  the  question  of  freedom  has 
received  earnest  consideration  at  his  hands. 
However,  his  interest  in  this  question,  Hke 
his  interest  in  the  problems  of  God  and 
immortahty,  was  not  merely  speculative, 
but  practical.  He  clearly  saw,  that  this 
profound  problem,  however  fascinating 
and  engaging  to  the  reflective  mind,  was 
not  simply  a  problem  of  the  philosopher's 
den,  but  one  having  a  vital  bearing  on 
human  life.  And,  indeed,  he  approached 
it  from  this  point  of  view.  We  cannot 
give  up  **  the  mighty  hopes  that  make  us 
men,"  neither  can  we  yield  those  funda- 
mental beliefs  which  give  life  its  supreme 
worth.  The  freedom  of  the  will,  in  our 
poet's  opinion,  was  one  of  these  beliefs. 
On  it  rest  the  moral  interests  of  life.  But 
this  is  one  of  those  great  beliefs  which  the 
science  and  philosophy  of  the  age  threat- 
ened. The  materialistic  conception  of 
man,  which  was  so  widely  prevalent,  was 
of  course  inconsistent  with  a  belief  in  free 
agency.     The  scnsationalistic   psychology 


y8  Tide  Mind  of  Tennyson 

and  philosophy,  which  regarded  man  as 
merely  '*  a  bundle  of  sensations,"  grouped 
according  to  mechanical  laws,  was  also  in- 
compatible with  such  a  belief,  as  Tennyson 
points  out  very  forcibly  in  the  Promise  of 
May,  The  Transcendentalism  of  the  age, 
as  explained  in  the  Introduction,  put  free- 
dom into  the  category  of  the  unknown  and 
unknowable.  Many  of  the  most  influen- 
tial writers  in  Ethics,  writing  from  the 
hedonistic  or  evolutional  points  of  view, 
denied  man's  power  of  self-determination. 
In  other  words,  here  was  one  of  the  most 
vital  beliefs  of  man  assailed  on  all  sides  by 
some  of  the  most  dominant  intellectual 
forces  of  the  age.  Tennyson  was  aware 
of  this,  and  was  conscious  of  its  signifi- 
cance. He  took  the  problem  up,  giving  it 
serious  consideration,  and  did  not  fail  to 
put  himself  on  record. 

That  he  was  deeply  interested  in  this 
question  of  freedom,  a  careful  examination 
of  his  poetry  reveals.  Such  poems  as 
those  entitled  Will^  Wages,  lit  Memoriam, 


Freedom  y^ 

The    Idylls   of  the   Kiiigy   De   ProfundiSy 

Despair^  The  Ancient  Sage,  The  Promise  of 

May,  By  an  Evolutionist,  The  Dawn,  and         ^^ 

The  Making  of  Man,  evidence  this.    Either 

explicitly,  or  by  implication,  they  treat  of 

the  reality,  mystery,  responsibility,  conse-      -Ajji — . 

quences,  and  goal  of  free-will. 

Again,  there  is  external  evidence  con- 
cerning Tennyson's  interest  in  this  ques- 
tion at  our  command,  —  evidence  which 
shows  also  that  his  interest  was  not  merely 
speculative,  but  practical,  appreciating 
the  important  bearing  of  the  question  on 
human  life.  His  son  informs  us,  that 
"  Free-will  and  its  relation  to  the  mean- 
ing of  human  life  and  to  circumstance  w'as 
latterly  one  of  his  most  common  subjects 
of  conversation."  ^  He  records,  also,  his 
father  as  saying,  "  Take  away  the  sense  of 
individual  responsibility  and  men  sink 
into  pessimism  and  madness."^  Tennyson 
"  wrote  at  the  end  of  the  poem  *  Despair ' : 
*  In  my  boyhood  I  came  across  the  Cal- 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  316.  ^  Hjid.^  p.  J17. 


8o  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

vinist  Creed,  and  assuredly  however  un- 
fathomable the  mystery,  if  one  cannot 
believe  in  the  freedom  of  the  human  will 
as  of  the  Divine,^  life  is  hardly  worth 
having.'"^  His  son  further  says,  **The 
lines  that  he  oftenest  repeated  about  Free- 
will were, 

'  This  main-miracle  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world.' 

Then  he  would  enlarge  upon  man's  con- 
sequent moral  obligations,  upon  the  Law 
which  claims  a  free  obedience,  and  upon 
the  pursuit  of  moral  perfection  (in  imitation 
of  the  Divine)  to  which  man  is  called."  ^ 
Let  us,  then,  inquire  carefully  into  Ten- 
*  nyson's  views  on  this  important  question. 

I  And  first,  on  the  question  of  the  reality  of 
j^^^^Y  t  f^^^"Wilh  An  examination  of  his  poetry 
will  disclose  very  clearly,  indeed,  that  he 
believed  in  its  reality.  If  we  turn  to  the 
poem  entitled  Will^  we  find  him  recognis- 
ing this  endowment  of  man.     His  son  says, 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  317.  ^  Ibid. 


/ 


Freedom  ^     8i 

concerning  the  second  part  of  this  poem, 
in  which  the  poet  notes  man's  responsi- 
bility for  the  proper  exercise  of  this  en- 
dowment, and  the  ill  consequences  which 
follow  an  improper  use  of  it,  that  it  is  **  one 
of  the  last  passages  I  heard  him  recite 
about  Free-will."  ^     The  poem  reads :  — 

I 

*'  O  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong ! 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long ; 
He  suffers,  but  he  cannot  suffer  wrong : 
For  him   nor   moves   the   loud   world's  random 

mock, 
Nor  all  Calamity's  hugest  waves  confound, 
Who  seems  a  promontory  of  rock, 
That,  compass'd  round  with  turbulent  sound, 
In  middle  ocean  meets  the  surging  shock, 
Tempest-buffeted,  citadel-crown'd. 

II 
"  But  ill  for  him  who,  bettering  not  with  time, 
Corrupts  the  strength  of  heaven-descended  Will, 
And  ever  weaker  grows  thro'  acted  crime, 
Or  seeming-genial  venial  fault, 
Recurring  and  suggesting  still! 
He  seems  as  one  whose  footsteps  halt, 
Toiling  in  immeasurable  sand. 
And  o'er  a  weary  sultry  land, 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  318. 
6 


82  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Far  beneath  a  blazing  vault, 

Sown  in  a  wrinkle  of  the  monstrous  hill. 

The  city  sparkles  like  a  grain  of  salt." 

If  we  examine  next  the  little  poem  en- 
titled Wages^  we  find  the  reality  of  will  — 
which  means  free-will  —  an  implication  of 
the  poem.  Here  he  contrasts  the  glory 
of  warrior,  orator,  and  song,  with  the 
glory  of  virtue  —  an  achievement  of  will, 
or,  more  properly,  will  rightly  exercised. 
The  former  are  — 

"  Paid  with  a  voice  flying  by  to  be  lost  on  an  end- 
less sea  "  — 

but  the  glory  of  virtue  is, 

"  to  fight,  to  struggle,  to  right  the  wrong." 

Indeed,  she  really  does  not  aim  at  glory  at 
all.     The  only  wages  she  asks  are  — 
"  the  glory  of  going  on,  and  still  to  be." 

Turning  next  to  In  Memoriam,  we  again 
find  a  recognition  of  the  reality  of  freedom. 
In  the  prologue,  there  is  an  explicit  decla- 
ration of  man's  freedom.     We  are  told, — 

J-  "  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how  ;  " 


Freedom  8j 

and  this  declaration  is  repeated  in  explain- 
ing the  object  or  purpose  of  this  endow- 
ment, — 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  thine." 

In  poem  Liv.,  in  considering  the  pur- 
pose or  goal  of  physical  and  moral  evil,  he 
again  recognises  the  reality  of  will.  Sin  is 
here  conceived  of,  not  as  mere  animalism 
or  bestiality,  but  as  a  wrong  exercise  of 
the  will.  In  other  words,  he  believes  there 
are  "  sins  of  will." 

Again,  in  poem  LXXXV.,  he  reveals  to  us 
his  sense  of  responsibility,  growing  out  of 
his  consciousness  of  the  possession  of  free 
agency. 

"Yet  none  could  better  know  than  I, 
How  much  of  act  at  human  hands 
The  sense  of  human  will  demands 
By  which  we  dare  to  live  or  die." 

Again,  in  poem  CXXXI.,  the  reality  of 
free-will  receives  recognition  —  as  well  as 
its  immortality.     It  shall  endure  — 

"When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock." 


8^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Indeed,  does  not  the  poet  in  these  words 
hint  at  a  position  which  we  have  found  to 
be  characteristic  of  his  teachings,  namely, 
the  difference  between  the  psychical  and 
the  so-called  corporeal  or  material?  The 
latter  is  the  seeming —  that  which  seems  — 
and  therefore  not  the  truly  real.  The 
**  living  will "  belongs  to  the  domain  of 
the  real  —  and  it  is  destined  to  endure 
when  the  seeming,  or  phenomenal,  "■  shall 
suffer  shock."  Tennyson's  son  informs 
us,  that  his  father  explained  the  words  — 

"  O  living  will  that  shalt  endure  " 

"  as  that  which  we  know  as  Free-will,  the 
higher  and  enduring  part  of  man."^ 
Furthermore,  in  this  poem,  the  will  is 
conceived  of  as  the  purifier  of  our  deeds, 
and  he  enjoins  it  to  — 

"  Rise  in  the  spiritual  rock, 
Flow  thro*  our  deeds  and  make  them  pure." 

He  also  speaks  here  of  a  — 

"faith  that  comes  of  self-control,"  — 
1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  p.  319. 


Freedom  Sj 

thus    declaring   again  our    self-determina- 
tion, or  free-will,  to  be   a  fact. 

If  we  now  turn  our  attention  to  T/i^ 
Idylls  of  the  Kingy  we  meet  with  the  same 
teaching.  In  those  "  spiritually  central 
lines  of  the  Idylls  "  it  is  manifest. 

"  In  moments  when  he  feels  he  cannot  die, 
And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself, 
Nor  the  high  God  a  vision." 

Here  he  affirms  the  reality  of  God  and 
man,  and  also,  of  man's  immortality.  Be- 
fore this,  he  has  been  speaking  of  moments 
when  the  material  world,  including  even 
the  human  body,  appears  to  belong  merely 
to  the  world  of  seeming  —  the  world  of 
"vision"  —  the  phenomenal  world,  and  not 
to  the  world  of  reality.  But  man  is  a 
spirit  —  a  person  — 

*'  And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself," 

but  rather  as  a  reality,  and  a  reality, 
too,  which  he  fccLs  cannot  die.  Now, 
Tennyson  regards  free-will,  the  **  power 
over  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world,"  as 


86  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

of  the  very  essence  of  personality.  This 
is  evident  from  his  poem,  De  Profundis, 
which  will  be  considered  later.  Hence,  in 
these  *' spiritually  central  lines  of  the 
Idylls"  we  have  a  recognition  of  man's 
power  of  self-determination. 

Furthermore,  is  not  free-will  a  funda- 
mental implication  of  this  entire  series  of 
remarkable  poems  ?  The  author,  in  the 
words  "•  To  the  Queen  "  appended  to  the 
Idylls,  says,  that  this  "  old  imperfect  tale, 
new-old,"  shadows  "  Sense  at  war  with 
Soul."  In  other  words,  we  have  in  these 
poems  the  story  of  the  conflict  between 
sense  and  spirit.  "  Arthur  is  intended  to 
be  a  man  in  whom  the  spirit  has  already 
conquered  and  reigns  supreme.  It  is 
upon  this  that  his  kingship  rests.  His 
task  is  to  bring  his  realm  into  harmony 
with  himself,  to  build  up  a  spiritual  and 
social  order  upon  which  his  own  character, 
as  the  best  and  highest,  shall  be  impressed. 
In  other  words,  he  works  for  the  uplifting 
and  purification   of  humanity.     It  is  the 


Freedom  Sy 

problem  of  civilization.  His  great  enemies 
in  this  task  are  not  outward  and  visible, —  |/ 
the  heathen,  —  for  these  he  overcomes  and 
expels.  But  the  real  foes  that  oppose 
him  to  the  end  are  the  evil  passions  in  the 
hearts  of  men  and  women  about  him.  So 
long  as  these  exist  and  dominate  human 
lives,  the  dream  of  a  perfected  society 
must  remain  unrealized  ;  and  when  they 
get  the  upper  hand,  even  its  beginnings 
will  be  destroyed.  But  the  conflict  is  not 
an  airy,  abstract  strife ;  it  lies  in  the  oppo- 
sition between  those  in  whom  the  sensual 
principle  is  regnant  and  those  in  whom 
the  spiritual  principle  is  regnant,  and  in 
the  inward  struggle  of  the  noble  heart 
against  the  evil,  and  of  the  sinful  heart 
against  the  good."  ^  Such  a  conflict,  —  \ 
such  a  struggle,  —  is  a  moral  one.  It 
involves  moral  choice,  and  moral  endeavor. 
It  is  a  matter  of  will,  which  means,  as  pre- 
viously stated,  free-will. 

^   II.  Van  Dyke,  The  Poetry  of  Tennyson,  loth  ed., 
N.  Y.  189S,  pp.  198,  199. 


88  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

In  De  Profundis,  a  poem  inspired  by 
the  birth  of  the  poet's  grandson,  we  have 
*'  the  abysmal  deeps  of  personahty " 
dwelt  upon.  He  refers  to  the  soul's  pre- 
existence,  incarnation,  nature,  and  destiny. 
Its  nature  is  a  profound  mystery.  It  is  the 
miracle  of  miracles.  It  is  of  the  Infinite, 
yet  distinct  from  the  Infinite.  Of  it  we 
may  say,  **Thou  art  thou."  It  has  a 
being-for-self.  It  has  the  power  of  deter- 
mining its  own  action,  and  of  action  upon 

things :  — 

"  who  wrought 
Not  Matter,  nor  the  finite-infinite, 
But  this  main-miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  ov.-n  act  and  on  the  world." 

Here    freedom    is    affirmed.       Self-deter- 
i  mination  is  regarded  as  of  the  very  consti- 

tution of  that  main-miracle  of  personality ; 
—  of  that  being  "  which  has  the  power  to 
feel  '  I  am  I.'  " 

In  the  poem  Despair,  Tennyson  enters 
a  protest  against  both  ultra-theological  and 
agnostic    conceptions    of    God    and    hfe. 


\\ 


Freedom  Sg 

According  to  the  words  prefixed  to  the 
poem,  it  is  based  on  the  following  incident : 
"A  man  and  his  wife  having  lost  faith  in  a 
God,  and  hope  of  a  life  to  come,  and  being 
utterly  miserable  in  this,  resolve  to  end 
themselves  by  drowning.  The  woman  is 
drowned,  but  the  man  rescued  by  a  minis- 
ter of  the  sect  he  had  abandoned."  The 
man  almost  curses  the  minister  for  rescuing 
him,  and,  in  his  remonstrance,  gives  reasons 
for  his  conduct  and  that  of  his  wife.  The 
bitter  experiences  of  life  drove  them  to 
despair.  They  could  derive  no  comfort  or 
encouragement  from  the  conceptions  of 
God,  and  man's  relation  to  Him,  presented 
in  the  theology  of  the  sect  to  which  they 
had  belonged.  This  theology  was  a  creed 
of  Fatalism^  — 

"  See,  we  were  nursed  in  the  drear  night-fold  of 
your  fatalist  creed." 

Such  a  "  fatalist  creed  "  gives  us  a  God  of 
cruelty  rather  than  a  God  of  love,  for  he 
creates  us,  foreknows  us,  m\(\  foredooms  us, 
and  docs  with  ics  as  he  ivilL  — 


go  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  What !  I  should  call  on  that  Infinite  Love  that 

has  served  us  so  well  ? 
Infinite  cruelty  rather  that  made  everlasting  Hell, 
Made  us,  foreknew  us,  foredoom'd  us,  and  does 

what  he  will  with  his  own ; 
Better   our  dead  brute   mother   who   never   has 

heard  us  groan  !  " 

The  outcome  of  such  teaching  is,  a 
rejection  of  belief  in  a  personal  God,  and 
in  the  reality  and  immortality  of  the  soul. 
"  Bawling "  the  dark  side  of  the  preach- 
er's faith  flings  these  two  back  on  them- 
selves, "■  the  human  heart,  and  the  Age." 
But  no  hope  or  comfort  is  to  be  derived 
from  the  age,  with  its  "  horrible  infidel 
writings,"  and  its  *'  know-nothing  books." 
The  times  are  "  the  new-dark  ages,"  and 
doubt  is  "  the  lord  of  this  dunghill." 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  one  of  the  things 
against  which  the  poet  is  protesting  in  this 
poem  is,  the  views  of  human  freedom  em- 
bodied in  the  dogmas  of  foreknowledge  and 
foreordination  of  the  "  know-all  chapel  " 
with  its  ''  know-all  "  creed.  These  views 
cancel  freedom,  they  constitute  a  '*  fatalist 


Freedom  gr 

creed."  Not  only  does  the  poem  reveal 
tliis,  but  it  is  corroborated  by  external 
evidence.  As  we  have  already  seen,  he 
wrote  at  the  end  of  the  poem  the  words : 
"  In  my  boyhood  I  came  across  the 
Calvinist  Creed,  and  assuredly  however 
unfathomable  the  mystery,  if  one  cannot 
believe  in  the  freedom  of  the  human  will 
as  of  the  Divine,  life  is  hardly  worth  hav- 
ing." In  short,  thejmport  of  Tennyson's 
protest  against  fatalism  as  revealed  in  this 
poem  is,  that  belief  in  freedom  is  essential 
to  a  conception  of  the  worth  of  life. 
/Turning  next  to  The  Ancient  Sage^  we 
find  freedom  recognised  at  least  by  impli- 
cation. We  have  already  seen  that  this 
speculative  poem  deals  with  materialistic 
and  agnostic  views  of  God  and  immortality. 
These  conceptions  are  represented  by  a 
youth,  who,  in  a  ''  scroll  of  verse,"  also 
gives  expression  to  pessimistic  views  of 
human  life  which  naturally  follow  such 
conceptions  of  God  and  destiny.  The  sage 
(who  represents  the  views  of  the  poet)  re- 


g2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

plies  to  the  youth,  that  human  life  is  a  trust 
put  into  our  keeping,  for  which  we  are 
responsible,  and  enjoins  the  youth,  despite 
the  dark  side  to  Hfe,  and  indeed,  because 
of  it,  to  a  noble  life  of  self-control,  and 
service  to  our  fellow-men,  which  lies  within 
the  sphere  of  choice  or  self-determination. 
In  response  to  the  words  of  the  youth,  — 

"  And  Night  and  Shadow  rule  below 
When  only  day  should  reign," 

the  sage  says  that  if  there  were  no  night 
there  would  be  no  day,  —  no  evil,  there 
would  be  no  good;   but  that  — 

"  night  enough  is  there 
In  yon  dark  city  :  get  thee  back  :  and  since 
The  key  to  that  weird  casket,  which  for  thee 
But  holds  a  skull,  is  neither  thine  nor  mine, 
But  in  the  hand  of  what  is  more  than  man, 
Or  in  man's  hand  when  man  is  more  than  man. 
Let  be  thy  wail  and  help  thy  fellow  men, 
And  make  thy  gold  thy  vassal  not  thy  king. 
And  fling  free  alms  into  the  beggar's  bowl, 
And  send  the  day  into  the  darken'd  heart ; 
Nor  list  for  guerdon  in  the  voice  of  men, 
A  dying  echo  from  a  falling  wall ; 


Freedom  gj 

Nor  care  —  for  Hunger  hath  the  Evil  eye  — 
To  vex  the  noon  with  fiery  gems,  or  fold 
Thy  presence  in  the  silk  of  sumptuous  looms; 
Nor  roll  thy  viands  on  a  luscious  tongue, 
Nor  drown  thyself  with  flies  in  honied  wine; 
Nor  thou  be  rageful,  like  a  handled  bee, 
And  lose  thy  life  by  usage  of  thy  sting  ; 
Nor  harm  an  adder  thro'  the  lust  for  harm, 
Nor  make  a  snail's  horn  shrink  for  wantonness  ; 
And   more  —  think    well !     Do-well  will  follow 

thought, 
And  in  the  fatal  sequence  of  this  world 
An  evil  thought  may  soil  thy  children's  blood; 
But  curb  the  beast  would  cast  thee  in  the  mire, 
And  leave  the  hot  swamp  of  voluptuousness 
A  cloud  between  the  Nameless  and  thyself. 
And  lay  thine  uphill  shoulder  to  the  wheel, 
And  climb  the  Mount  of  Blessing,"  etc. 

In  these  words  we  have  a  clear  call  to  a 
moral  choice,  to  a  moral  decision,  to  moral 
self-control,  to  moral  achievement,  to  moral 
service  to  self  and  others.  Such  a  call 
involves  a  recognition  of  freedom. 

In  Locks  ley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After,  we 

find  another  declaration  of  the  reality  of 

freedom.     Man  is  enjoined  to  — 

"Follow  Light,  and  do  the  Right  —  for  man  can 
half-control  his  doom,  —  " 


p^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

which  words  remind  us  of  the  more  em- 
phatic words  to  the  same  effect,  recorded 
in  The  Marriage  of  Geraint:  — 

"  For  man  is  man  and  master  of  his  fate." 

The  Promise  of  May  is  a  poem  of  ethical 
import.^  It  was  written  with  the  purpose 
of  pointing  out  the  tendencies  of  material- 
istic Agnosticism,  —  especially  as  manifest 
in  human  character  and  conduct  It  is  a 
story  of  illicit  love,  in  which  Edgar  (after- 
wards known  as  Harold)  is  the  represen- 
tative in  belief  and  practice  of  the  agnostic 
*'  creed."    With  him  virtue  is  not  a  reality. 

1  This  play  was  produced  at  the  Globe  Theatre, 
November  ii,  1882,  under  the  direction  of  Mrs.  Bernard- 
Beere.  It  was  a  complete  failure.  On  the  night  of 
November  14th  of  the  same  year,  as  the  piece  was  near- 
ing  the  close  of  the  first  act,  the  Marquis  of  Queensbury 
sprang  to  his  feet  exclaiming,  *'  I  beg  to  protest  .  .  ." ; 
but  adding,  "  I  will  wait  till  the  end  of  the  act,"  he  re- 
turned to  his  seat.  When  the  curtain  had  fallen  he 
again  stood  up,  and,  confessing  himself  an  agnostic, 
declared  that  Tennyson's  Edgar  was  an  'abominable 
caricature '  into  whose  mouth  the  poet  had  put  senti- 
ments that  did  not  exist  among  free  thinkers.  —  Morton 
Luce,  A  Handbook  to  the  Works  of  Alfred  Lord  Ten  ay- 
soft,  pp.  411,  412.     Cf.  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  266-269. 


Freedom  p^ 

There  is  no  essential  distinction  between 

virtue  and  vice.     He  says  ;  — 

"  one  time's  vice  may  be 
The  virtue  of  another ;   and  Vice  and  Virtue 
Are  but  two  masks  of  self;  and  what  hereafter 
Shall  mark  out  Vice  from  Virtue  in  the  gulf 
Of  never-dawning  darkness." 

So-called  morals  are  merely  slavish  cus- 
toms and  conventionalities.  ''  The  morals 
of  the  tribe  "  are  simply  the  "  swaddling- 
bands  "  of  man,  which,  as  '^  the  child  of 
evolution,"  he  will  "  fling  aside "  as  he 
moves  on  to  a  life  not  higher  than,  but  in 
conformity  to,  Nature.     Free-will, — 

"  the  crowd  would  call  it  conscience  "  — 
is  a  misnomer.     The  reality  is,  that  we  are 
determined    by    "the    stronger    motive." 
Man  is  merely  — 

"  A  willy-nilly  current  of  sensations." 

This  is  Edgar's  creed,  and,  as  put  in 
practice  by  him,  results  in  moral  disaster. 
Tennyson's  purpose  seems  to  be,  to  protest 
against  such  a  creed  from  the  standpoint 
of  its    practical  consequences.     To  make 


^6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

man  a  mere  child  of  Nature,  governed  only 
by  mechanical  laws,  subject  to  the  strong- 
est motive,  —  cancels  morality,  and  reduces 
man  to  mere  animalism.  Such  a  concep- 
tion of  man  makes  Nature  a  liar,  for  vi^hat 
is  the  meaning  of  the  moral  emotions  if 
man  be  not  responsible  for  his  conduct; 
and  how  can  he  be  held  responsible  for  his 
conduct  if  he  be  not  free?  Tennyson  puts 
the  case  most  forcefully  in  the  words  of 
Edgar:  — 

"  if  man  be  only 
A  willy-niily  current  of  sensations  — 
Reaction  needs  must  follow  revel  —  yet  — 
Why  feel  remorse,  he,  knowing  that  he  Tnws^have 
Moved  in  the  iron  grooves  of  Destiny? 
Remorse  then  is  a  part  of  Destiny, 
Nature  a  liar,  making  us  feel  guilty 
Of  her  own  faults." 

There  are  three  poems,  belonging  to  the 
closing  years  of  Tennyson's  life,  which 
imply  his  belief  in  the  reality  of  freedom. 
They  are  entitled.  By  an  Evolutionist  ; 
The  Dawn,  and  The  Making  of  Man, 
Tennyson   believed    in  organic  evolution. 


Freedom  gy 

He  believed  that  the  human  body  was 
descended  from  a  lower  form  of  animal 
life.  However,  in  his  judgment,  this  is 
not  so  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  not  an 
evolution  of  the  brute  mind.  Men  are 
not  "■  slaves  of  a  four-footed  will,"  but 
beings  of  heaven-descended  Will."  Now, 
since  man  is  a  compound  being,  consist- 
ing of  body  and  soul,  it  is  the  province 
of  man  as  "  heaven-descended  Will "  to 
rule  over  man  as  animal-descended  body. 
In  other  words,  man  as  spirit  ought  to 
rule  himself  as  body.  This  involves  a 
severe  struggle.  The  animalism  in  us  is 
strong.  ''  The  flesh  warreth  against  the 
spirit."  But  we  are  moral  beings,  with 
moral  ideals,  possessed  of  the  sovereign 
power  of  self-determination,  so  that  it  is 
possible,  by  a  proper  exercise  of  will,  to 
obey  the  exhortation,  — 

"  Arise  and  fly 
The  reeling  Faun,  the  sensual  feast; 
Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die." 

7 


g8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

The  soul  is  to  hold  the  sceptre,  and  to 
rule  its  '*  Province  of  the  brute."  This  is 
undoubtedly  the  teaching  of  the  first  of 
the  poems  mentioned  above :  — 

I 

"  If   my  body  come  from   brutes,  tho'  somewhat 
finer  than  their  own, 
I  am   heir,  and   this   my  kingdom,  shall   the 
royal  voice  be  mute  ? 
No,  but  if  the  rebel  subject  seek  to  drag  me  from 
the  throne, 
Hold  the  sceptre,  Human  Soul,  and  rule  thy 
Province  of  the  brute. 

II 

"  I  have  climb'd  to  the  snows  of  Age,  and  I  gaze 
at  a  field  in  the  Past, 
Where  I  sank  with  the  body  at  times  in  the 
sloughs  of  a  low  desire. 
But  I  hear  no  yelp  of  the  beast,  and  the  Man  is 
quiet  at  last 
As  he  stands  on  the  heights  of  his  life  with 
a  glimpse  of  a  height  that  is  higher." 

This,  too,  is  the  import  of  the  second  of 
the  poems  referred  to  above.  The  last 
two  verses  indicate  this.  Men  are  not 
*'  slaves  of  a  four-footed  will ;  "  but  there 


Freedom  pp 

are   degrees  of  freedom.     They  have  not 

attained    unto   a   complete    freedom    from 

the  power  of  their  animality.     Man  in  his 

moral  development   has  only  reached  the 

dawn,  and  not  the  day  ;  but  although  a  few 

only  have  reached  a  high  level  in  moral 

development,   we   must   remember  "  there 

is  time  for  the  race  to  grow."     By  and  by 

man  will  reach   the    noon    instead   of  the 

dawn. 

"  Dawn  not  Day  ! 

Is  it  Shame,  so  few  should  hav-e  climb'd  from 

the  dens  in  the  level  below. 

Men,  with  a  heart  and  a  soul,  no  slaves  of  a 

four-footed  will  ? 

But  if  twenty  million  of  summers  are  stored 

in  the  sunlight  still, 

We  are  far  from  the  noon  of  man,  there  is  time 

for  the  race  to  grow." 

"  Red  of  dawn  ! 
Is  it  turning  a  fainter  red  ?  so  be  it,  but  when 
shall  we  lay 
The  Ghost  of  the  Brute  that  is  walking  and 

haunting  us  yet,  and  be  free  .'' 
In  a  hundred,  a  thousand  winters?     Ah,  what 
will  our  children  be, 
The  men  of  a  hundred  tliousand,  a  million  sum- 
mers away  .'' '' 


t  « 


100  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

The  last  of  the  three  poems  referred  to 
above  is  very  similar  to  the  other  two  in 
regard  to  its  real  import.     Man  is  grad- 
ually rising  above  his  bestiality  ;  gradually 
moving  upward  from  the  life  of  the  flesh 
into   the  richer   life  of  the   spirit.     He  is 
slowly  *'  being  made  "  ;  but  ultimately  he 
■;         will  be  made.     But,  if  we  are  to  interpret 
\        these  words    in    accordance   with   Tenny- 
son's  general    teaching,   "  the    making  of 
'\     man,"  is  a  process  of  self-making.     He  is 
making   himself  by  a  proper  exertion  of 
his  free  spirit  under  Divine  guidance. 

"  Where  is  one  that,  born  of   woman,  altogether 
can  escape 
From  the  lower  world  within  him,  moods  of  tiger, 
or  of  ape  ? 
Man  as  yet  is  being  made,  and  ere  the  crown- 
ing Age  of  ages, 
Shall  not  aeon  after  aeon  pass  and  touch  him 
into  shape  ? 

"  All  about  him  shadow  still,  but,  while  the  races 
flower  and  fade, 
Prophet-eyes  may  catch  a  glory  slowly  gaining  on 
the  shade, 


Freedom 


lOI 


Till   the   peoples   all   are   one,   and   all   their 
voices  blend  in  choric 
Hallelujah  to  the  Maker  'It  is  finished.     Man 
is  made,' " 

But  while  freedom  is  a  reality,  —  it  is  a 
progressive  reality.  There  are  degrees  of 
freedom.  The  more  we  progress  morally, 
the  freer  we  become.  "  Man's  Free-will 
is  but  a  bird  in  a  cage;  he  can  stop  at 
the  lower  perch,  or  he  can  mount  to  a 
higher.  Then  that  which  is  and  knows 
will  enlarge  his  cage,  give  him  a  higher 
and  a  higher  perch,  and  at  last  break  off 
the  top  of  his  cage,  and  let  him  out  to 
be  one  with  the  Free-will  of  the  Uni- 
verse." ^  In  short,  Tennyson  believed  that 
free-will  is  the  root  of  moral  character; 
that  moral  character  is  a  development; 
that  the  glory  of  virtue  is  — 

"  The  glory  of  going  on,  and  still  to  be ;  " 

that    the    progressive    realisation    of    the 
moral  ideal  is  a  progressive  realisation  of 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.,  pp.  318,  319. 


102  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

freedom ;  that  this  moral  development, 
with  its  increasing  freedom,  extends  into 
the  immortal  life  —  the  dead  breathing  *'  an 
ampler  day,"  **  for  ever  nobler  ends."  Is  this 
not  the  teaching  of  such  poems  as  Wages^ 
In  Mejnoriam,  cxviii.,  By  an  Evolutionisty 
The  Dawny  and  The  Making  of  Man  ? 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  a  review  of  the 

poetry   of    Tennyson    discloses    the    fact 

that  he  believed  in  the  reality  of  freedom. 

\     Let   us    now    endeavor    to    determine    his 

i 

'  position  with  reference  to  the  knowable- 
ness  of  the  reality.  Very  early  in  his 
career,  in  TJie  Poet,  he  recognised  the 
marvellous  character  of  the  will,  although 

"  The  marvel  of  the  everlasting  will " 

lies  before  the  superior  vision  of  the  seer 

"  An  open  scroll.'* 

But  the  will,  with  Tennyson,  is  really  an 
unknowable,  inexplicable  reality.  This  is 
quite  evident  in  the  prologue  to  In 
Mernoriam.      Here,    as   we    have    already 


Freedom  loj 

seen,  he  affirms  the  reality  of  free-will. 
Our  wills  arc  ours  is  the  explicit  declara- 
tion. This  declaration  is  repeated,  and  a 
further  affirmation  of  the  fact  is  given  in 
the  words  "  to  make  them  thine."  That 
is,  there  is  a  double  affirmation  of  the 
reality  of  free-will  in  the  words, 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  thine," 

because  the  power  *'  to  make  them  thine  " 
is   nothing   else   than    the   power  of  self- 
determination.     But   the   "  how "   of  self-  ' 
determination    is    unknowable,    according 
to  the  poet ;   for,  he  says  :  —  / 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how."  / 

And  this  unknowableness  seems  to  be  re- 
affirmed later  in  the  prologue,  for  it  ap- 
pears to  be  a  justifiable  interpretation  of 
the  words  of  verse  6,  — •  t 

*'  We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know,"  / 

to  apply  them  to  free-will,  as  well  as  to 
God  and  immortality  —  the  three  subjects 
mentioned  in  the  preceding  verses. 

A  similar  position  is  taken  by  the  poet 


104-  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

in  De  Proftmdis.  Personality,  of  which 
self-determination  is  one  of  the  essential 
constituents,  is  an  inconceivable  reality,  — • 

"  Who  made  thee  unconceivably  Thyself." 

It  is  a  miracle ;  indeed,  the  "  main- 
miracle,"    as    Tennyson   declares    in    the 

words,  — 

"...  who  wrought 
Not  matter,  nor  the  finite-infinite, 
But  this  main-miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world." 

Meagre  as  are  his  words  on  this  sub- 
ject, are  they  not  sufficient,  when  taken 
in  connection  with  what  he  has  said  con- 
cerning the  reality  of  free-will,  to  justify 
us  in  sa3nng,  that  the  poet's  position  in 
regard  to  freedom  is,  that  it  is  not  a 
knowable  reality,  but  a  believable  one.  It 
is  not  a  fact  or  truth  of  the  knowing 
mind,  but  of  the  believing  soul,  —  a  reality 
concerning  which  — 

"We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know." 
We  believe  in  it  largely  on  the  authority 


Freedom  jo^ 

of  the  ''  practical  reason,"  or  moral  con- 
sciousness. It  is  necessary  for  the  ex- 
planation of  the  moral  life  ;  it  is  necessary 
for  living  the  moral  life.  In  short,  free- 
dom is  a  practical  or  moral  postulate. 
Tennyson's  position  here  is  essentially  in 
harmony  with  his  ^'  Faith  Philosophy," 
as  we  have  been  made  acquainted  with  it 
in  examining  what  he  has  said  concerning 
our  knowledge  of  God.  God  and  freedom 
are  "  unknown  and  unknowable  realities." 
They  belong  to  the  noumenal,  to  which  the 
human  mind,  through  sense  and  reason, 
cannot  attain.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  are  believable  realities,  —  posited  by 
the  believing  soul. 


IMMORTALITY 

Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust. 

In  Menioriam^  Prologue,  3 

The  face  of  Death  is  toward  the  Sun  of  Life, 
His  shadow  darkens  earth  ;  his  truer  name 
Is  "  Onward !  " 

The  Dehth  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  and  AvondaU. 

IMMANUEL  KANT,  in  the  Intro- 
duction to  his  famous  Critique  of 
Pure  Reasouy  says,  that  there  are  cer- 
tain problems  concerning  which  "reason 
prosecutes  its  investigations,  which  [inves- 
tigations] by  their  importance  we  consider 
far  more  excellent  and  by  their  tendency 
far  more  elevated  than  anything  the  under- 
standing can  find  in  the  sphere  of  phenom- 
ena. Nay,  we  risk  rather  anything,  even 
at  the  peril  of  error,  than  that  we  should 
surrender   such    investigations,    either   on 


V 


Immortality  loy 

the  ground  of  their  uncertainty,  or  from 
any  feeling  of  indifference  or  contempt."  ^ 
And,  in  the  second  edition,  he  informs  us 
that  **  these  inevitable  problems  of  pure 
reason  itself  are,  God,  Freedom,  and  Im- 
viortalityy^  Of  these,  the  third  occupies 
the  most  prominent  place  in  Tennyson's  , 

reflection.  All  through  his  career  as  a  U'^' 
poet,  this  problem  engages  his  attention. 
It  gives  rise  to  his  profoundest  thought. 
It  stirs  his  deepest  emotion.  It  perplexes 
his  sublimest  faith.  And,  in  his  endeavor 
to  **  beat  his  music  out,"  he  gives  to  the 
world  some  of  his  most  consummate  art. 
The  reasons  why  this  problem  engages 
so  much  of  his  attention  have  already  been 
stated.    We    have  found  them  to  be   pri-  Vj/   _ 

marily  the  loss  of  his  friend,  Arthur  Henry 
Hallam,  and  the  materialistic  and  agnostic 
tendencies  of  his  age.  Hallam  was  a 
young  man  of  unusual  mental  endowments 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  trans,  by  Muller,  vol.  ii., 
Int.,  pp.  2-3. 
'•^  Ibid.,  p.  3. 


io8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

and  exceedingly  fine  character.  Through- 
out /;/  Memoriam  Tennyson  speaks  of  him 
in  the  most  exalted  terms. ^     His  was  — 

"  A  life  that  all  the  Muses  deck'd 

With  gifts  of  grace,  that  might  express 
All-comprehensive  tenderness, 
All-subtilising  intellect." 

His  was  — 

"  High  nature  amorous  of  the  good, 
But  touch'd  with  no  ascetic  gloom." 

His  was  a  — 

"  manhood  fused  with  female  grace." 

Indeed,  Tennyson  says,  he  was  the  man  he 
"  held  as  half-divine." 

Between  these  two  young  men  existed 
a  peculiarly  strong  and  affectionate  friend- 
ship.    The  poet  speaks  of  him  as  — 

"  Dear  as  the  mother  to  the  son, 

More  than  my  brothers  are  to  me." 

as  — 

"  The  human-hearted  man  I  loved." 

^  Cf.   especially  poems  lvii.,   lx,,   lxxii.,   lxxix., 

LXXXIV.,  LXXXV.,  LXXXVir.,  XCVI.,  XCIX.,  CIX.,  ex.,  CXI., 

cxii.,  and  cxiii.  This  exalted  opinion  Tennyson  cher- 
ished throughout  his  life.  It  was  also  entertained,  in  a 
large  measure,  by  the  mutual  friends  of  Tennyson  and 
Hallam. 


Immortality  log 

He  also  speaks  of  himself,  in  his  relation 
to  Hallam,  as  — 

"  the  divided  half  of  such 
A  friendship  as  had  mastered  Time." 

In  1832,  an  additional  tie  was  formed  be- 
tween the  two  friends.  Hallam  became 
engaged  to  Tennyson's  sister  Emily.  The 
poet  refers  pathetically  to  this  relation,^ 
and  its  possible  outcome  as  bearing  on  his 
own  life,  had  Hallam  lived.  But  the  mar- 
riage was  never  to  take  place.  A  "  re- 
morseless iron  hour"  was  destined  to 
make  *'  cypress  of  her  orange  flower," 
"despair  of  hope,"  and  earth  of  Arthur 
Hallam.  In  1833,  as  ''the  day  was  draw- 
ing on,"  while  travelling  on  the  Continent, 
Hallam  fell  ill  with  fever,  to  which  he 
ultimately  succumbed.  He  died  in  Vienna, 
September  15,  of  the  same  year. 

"  My  blood  an  even  tenor  kept, 

Till  on  mine  ear  this  message  falls, 
That  in  Vienna's  fatal  halls, 
God's  finger  touch'd  him,  and  he  slept." 

[ 
1  In  Memoriam,  lxxxiv. 


jio  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Now,  the  desire,  born  of  the  heart's 
deepest  affection,  that  Love  shall  "  never 
lose  its  own,"  impelled  Tennyson  to  seri- 
ous reflection  on  the  grounds  for  believing 
that  it  may  eternally  claim  its  object.  In 
his  reflection,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he 
had  to  encounter  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
which  was,  in  many  respects,  anything  but 
encouraging  to  a  would-be  believer  in 
immortality.  We  have  noted  that  the 
Materialism  and  Sensationalism  of  the  age 
cancelled  the  reality  of  the  soul,  and 
consequently  its  immortality.  Also,  that 
the  Agnosticism  of  the  age  denied  a 
knowledge  of  the  soul  and  thereby  of  its 
immortality.  Again,  that  the  biblical  criti- 
cism of  the  times  weakened  the  confidence 
of  many  in  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures ; 
and,  as  a  result,  their  declarations  concern- 
ing "  the  life  everlasting  "  lost  much  of  their 
force.  It  was  this  powerful  spirit  of  doubt 
and_denial  which  Tennyson  had_to  encouq- 
ter  in  trying  to  establish  himself  firmly  in 
a  belief  in   man's   immortal   future.     We 


Immortality  iii 

shall  see  that  for  more  than  half  a  century 
he  fought  his  battle ;  and  it  is  not  irrever- 
ent to  say,  that,  with  both  internal  and 
external  foes,  he  fought  a  good  fight;  he 
finished  his  course,  and  he  kept  the  faith. 
The  history  of  Tennyson's  mental  atti- 
tude toward  the  question  of  immortaHty 
may  be  divided  into  four  periods.  -These 
are  quite  distinguishable,  both  logically 
and  chronologically.  The-ffirst,|  may  be  '•, 
called  the  period  of  naive,  uncritical 
belief,  in  which  the  poet  rests  in  the 
undisturbed  confidence  of  an  inherited 
faith.  The  /second7!  is  when  he  awakes 
from  the  sleep  of  dogmatism  and  ex-  ( vj 
periences  the  first  rude  shocks  of  doubt. 
The[tHIrd,7finds  him  engaged  in  a  reflec- 
tive consideration  of  the  question,  endeav- 
oring to  establish  his  faith  on  a  rational  ±J 
basis  in  the  face  of  his  own  doubts  and 
those  of  his  age.  Thejfourth,^,  finds  him 
emerging  from  this  long  period  of  rational  '  ) 
consideration,  into  the  enjoyment  of  a 
calm  and  serene  faith. 


IJ2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

The  first  period  —  that  of  naive,  uncriti- 
cal belief — is  the  period  in  which  things 
are  believed  on  the  authority  of  parent, 
society,  and  the  church.  No  rational 
ground  for  their  acceptance  is  demanded 
—  indeed,  hardly  dreamed  of  as  neces- 
sary. The  body  of  supposed  religious 
truth  is  received  as  a  matter  of  course. 
He,  like  thousands  of  others,  is,  so  to 
speak,  born  into  them.  His  father  v^as 
a  Christian  minister.  His  mother  was  a 
woman  of  simple  and  earnest  Christian 
faith.  He  was  born  and  reared  in  a 
Christian  land.  In  other  words,  his  envi- 
ronment was  Christian.  He  merely  ex- 
emplified human  nature  in  receiving  the 
creed  of  his  parents,  church,  and  country, 
at  first,  with  most  unquestioning  faith. 
This  is  the  period  in  which  the  native 
dogmatism  of  the  mind  still  rules.  Re- 
flection has  not  yet  awakened  it  from  its 
**  dogmatic  slumber."  This  simple  atti- 
tude toward  the  question  is  noticeable  in 
the  earliest  poetry  of  Tennyson  as  found 


Immortality  iij 

in  Poems,  by  Two  Brothers^  —  published  by 
Charles  Turner  Tennyson  and  his  brother 
Alfred,  when  the  former  was  eighteen, 
and  the  latter  fifteen,  years  of  age.  There 
are  several  poems  in  this  volume  which 
touch  upon  the  subject  of  immortality. 
One  of  these,  credited  to  Alfred  Tenny- 
son, is  entitled :  Why  should  we  Weep 
for  Those  who  Die  ?     It  reads  as  follows : 

"  Why  should  we  weep  for  those  who  die  ? 
They  fall  —  their  dust  returns  to  dust ; 
Their  souls  shall  live  eternally 
Within  the  mansions  of  the  just. 

"  They  die  to  live  —  they  sink  to  rise, 

They  leave  this  wretched  mortal  shore ; 
But  brighter  suns  and  bluer  skies 
Shall  smile  on  them  for  evermore. 

"  Why  should  we  sorrow  for  the  dead  ? 
Our  life  on  earth  is  but  a  span ; 
They  tread  the  path  that  all  must  tread, 
They  die  the  common  death  of  man. 

1  Poems,  by  Two  Brothers.  London:  Printed  for 
W.  Simpkin  and  R.  Marshall,  Stationers'-IIall-Court; 
and  J.  and  J.  Jackson,  Louth.  MDCCCXX  VIL  Copies 
of  this  edition  are  very  rare.  A  second  edition  was 
published  by  Macmillan  &  Co.,  New  York  and  London, 
1893. 

8 


11^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  The  noblest  songster  of  the  gale 

Must  cease,  when  Winter's  frowns  appear; 
The  reddest  rose  is  wan  and  pale, 

When  Autumn  tints  the  changing  year. 

The  fairest  flower  on  earth  must  fade. 
The  brightest  hopes  on  earth  must  die  : 

Why  should  we  mourn  that  man  was  made 
To  droop  on  earth,  but  dwell  on  high? 

"  The  soul,  th'  eternal  soul  must  reign 
In  worlds  devoid  of  pain  and  strife; 
Then  why  should  mortal  man  complain 
Of  death,  which  leads  to  happier  life  ?  " 

No  questioning  here  as  to  whether  *'  death 
ends  all."  He  knows  nothing  here  of  the 
"  sunless  gu/lfs  of  doubt.'*  No  voice  has 
yet  murmured  — 

"  from  the  narrow  house, 
The  cheeks  drop  in  ;  the  body  bows  ; 
Man  dies:  nor  is  there  hope  in  dust." 

\  It  is  the  spring-time  of  faith.  Nothing 
but  promise  is  seen  in  anything  —  even  in 
death. 

Another  poem  of  this  early  period, 
which  illustrates  this  simple,  untainted 
faith,   is   entitled    Remorse.     In    the   pre- 


Immort.:lity  7/5 

ceding  poem  It  is  apparent  that  it  is 
simple  Christian  faith  which  is  expressed ; 
and  it  is  the  happy  side  of  Christian  faith 
—  the  immortaHty  which  awaits  the  just. 
In  this  second  poem  he  again  gives  ex- 
pression to  his  inherited  Christian  beliefs 
in  the  future  life.  Here,  however,  his 
faith  embodies  itself  in  ultra-theological 
views  of  the  punishment  which  awaits  the 
wicked  after  death.  The  poem  describes 
the  mental  state  of  an  old  man  as  he  re- 
flects upon  a  misspent  life,  and  the  penalty 
which  the  future  life  will  bring.  After 
calling  attention  to  the  mental  pictures 
which  arise  when  reviewing  such  a  life,  he 
contemplates  the  present  and  future. 

"  If  I  am  damn'd,  why  find  I  not 
Some  comfort  in  this  earthly  spot? 
But  no !  this  world  and  that  to  come 
Are  both  to  me  one  scene  of  gloom  ! 

And  I  was  cursed  from  my  birth, 

A  reptile  made  to  creep  on  earth, 

An  hopeless  outcast,  l)orn  to  die 

A  living  death  eternally  ! 

With  too  much  conscience  to  have  rest, 


ii6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Too  little  to  be  ever  blest, 
To  yon  vast  world  of  endless  woe 
Unlighted  by  the  cheerful  day, 
My  soul  shall  wing  her  weary  way; 

To  those  dread  depths  where  aye  the  same, 
Throughout  the  waste  of  darkness,  glow 

The  glimmerings  of  the  boundless  flame." 

Despite  his  misery  in  this  world  he  still 

clings  to  it  — 

"...  for  well 
I  know  the  pangs  that  rack  me  now 
Are  trifles,  to  the  endless  hell 

That  waits  me,  when  my  burning  brow 
And  my  wrung  eyes  shall  hope  in  vain 
For  one  small  drop  to  cool  the  pain, 
The  fury  of  that  madd'ning  flame 
That  then  shall  scorch  my  writhing  frame  ! 

"  Oh,  God  !  that  thou  wouldst  grant  that  ne'er 
My  soul  its  clay-cold  bed  forsake, 
That  I  might  sleep,  and  never  wake 

Unto  the  thrill  of  conscious  fear  ; 
For  when  the  trumpet's  piercing  cry 

Shall  burst  upon  my  slumb'ring  ear, 
And  countless  seraphs  throng  the  sky. 

How  shall  I  cast  my  shroud  away. 

And  come  into  the  blaze  of  day  ? 

How  shall  I  brook  to  hear  each  crime, 

Here  veil'd  by  secrecy  and  time, 


Immortality  nj 

Read  out  from  thine  eternal  book  ? 
How  shall  I  stand  before  thy  throne, 
While  earth  shall  like  a  furnace  burn  ? 
How  shall  I  bear  the  with'ring  look 
Of  men  and  angels,  who  will  turn 
Their  dreadful  gaze  on  me  alone  ?  " 

In  this  poem,  even  after  making  allow- 
ance for  metaphor  and  "  poetic  license," 
we  have  the  most  realistic  conceptions  of 
future  punishment,  —  an  exaggerated  inter- 
pretation of  extreme  theological  views. 
Some  men  are  born  to  an  eternal  living 
death.  The  pangs  of  earth  are  trifles  to 
what  awaits  those  who  are  doomed  to  an 
endless  and  hopeless  hell.  There  will  be 
a  naked  revelation  of  crimes  that  have  here 
been  ''  veil'd  by  secrecy  and  time."  Ab- 
solute death  is  more  to  be  preferred  than 
to  awake  to  "the  thrill  of  conscious  fear" 
of  an  impending  doom.  All  of  this  indi- 
cates that  Tennyson  is  giving  expression 
to  an  unexamined,  unquestioned,  inherited 
faith  on  the  subject  of  the  immortal  des- 
tiny of  the  wicked.  So  that  these  two 
poems    plainly    show    his     first     attitude 


ii8  The  'Mind  of  Tennyson 

toward  the  question  of  immortality  to  be 
one  of  naive  credence,  —  of  simple,  un- 
questioning, dogmatic  belief. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  second  period 
of  his  mental  history  concerning  this  great 
question.  But  how  widely  different  in 
character  it  is !  Faith  has  received  its 
first  rude  encounter.  The  mind  has  been 
awakened  from  its  *'  dogmatic  slumber." 
It  asks  itself  the  question  whether,  after 
all,  these  things  which  seemed  so  pro- 
foundly real,  were  not  merely  the  dreams 
of  the  soul  in  the  sleep  of  dogmatism. 
The  rosy  visions  of  youthful  faith  are 
gone.  "  The  spectres  of  the  mind  "  have 
taken  their  place,  and,  in  wretchedness 
of  soul,  he  is  trying  to  "  lay  them."  He 
has  entered  upon  the  reflective  period  of 
life,  and  the  penalty  is  disquietude  of  spirit. 
This  period  probably  dawned  during  his 
university  career,  and  was  the  result  of 
gradually  maturing  mind,  and  increasing 
knowledge,  as  vi^ell  as  contact  with  the 
conflicting  opinion  and  doubt  of  the  age. 


Immortality  iig 

The  change  in  Tennyson  is  profound,  and 
the  effect  on  his  sensitive  soul  is  easily 
discerned  in  a  poem,  composed  at  this 
time,  entitled  Supposed  Confessions  of  a 
Second-Rate  Sensitive  Mind.  It  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly pathetic  utterance,  —  the  cry  of 
a  soul  bruised  and  torn  by  a  hand-to-hand 
conflict  with  Doubt.  An  analysis  of  the 
poem  will  reveal  the  severity  of  the  strug- 
gle, as  well  as  the  gloom  and  despair  which 
have  taken  possession  of  his  soul. 

It  opens  with  a  prayer  to  God  for  mercy 
in  his  wretched  condition.  He  reproaches 
himself  in  this  prayer  because,  despite 
God's  love  manifest  in  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Christ,  there  is  need  of  something 
more  to  strengthen  his  belief;  and  for 
thinking  a  visible  sign  might  avail  him  in 
this  respect.  After  a  description  of  his 
misery,  he  breaks  forth  in  an  exclama- 
tion in  whicli  is  revealed  the  fact,  that 
it  is  the  question  of  immortality  concern- 
ing which  he  is  especially  in  doubt.  Wo. 
says : — 


I20  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  How  sweet  to  have  a  common  faith  ! 
To  hold  a  common  scorn  of  death ! 
And  at  a  burial  to  hear 
The  creaking  cords  which  wound  and  eat 
Into  my  human  heart,  whene'er 
Earth  goes  to  earth,  with  grief,  not  fear, 
With  hopeful  grief,  were  passing  sweet !  " 

But  apparently  this  faith  and  "  hopeful 
grief"  are  not  his.  There  is  longing  for 
the  "  thrice  happy  state  "  of  the  *'  trustful 
infant."  There  is  yearning  for  the  spiritual 
quietude  of  his  mother  which,  as  a  child, 
he  discerned  as  he  bowed  at  her  knee  and 
listened  to  her  vows  in  prayer  for  him. 
Why  is  it  that  we  get  away  from  such  in- 
fluences ?  What  devil  had  the  heart  to 
ruthlessly  destroy  the  flowers  of  faith  which 
she  had  reared?  Is  he  himself  that 
devil?  But  why  have  her  prayers  for 
him  not  availed,  for  she  was  *'  great  in 
faith"?  What  use  in  praying  to  a 
God  who  does  not  hear;  or  if  he  hear, 
does  not  heed?  These  are  the  questions 
he  raises,  and  the  reflections  involved  dis- 
tract him. 


Imiuortality  121 

*'  Why  not  believe  then  ?  Why  not  yet 
Anchor  thy  frailty  there,  where  man 
Hath  moor'd  and  rested?" 

But  the  utter  hopelessness  of  his  condition 
manifests  itself  in  the  answer  he  gives  to 
his  own  question.  Why  not  believe? 
Why  not  anchor  my  frailty  there? 

"  Ask  the  sea 
At  midnight,  when  the  crisp  slope  waves 
After  a  tempest,  rib  and  fret 
The  broad-imbased  beach,  why  he 
Slumbers  not  like  a  mountain  tarn  ? 
Wherefore  his  ridges  are  not  curls 
And  ripples  of  an  inland  mere  ? 
Wherefore  he  moaneth  thus,  nor  can 
Draw  down  into  his  vexed  pools 
All  that  blue  heaven  which  hues  and  paves 
The  other  ?  " 

As  such  behavior  is  impossible  for  the 
sea,  so  belief  is  impossible  for  him.  He  is 
"  forlorn  "  and  "  shaken  ;  "  his  own  weak- 
ness fools  his  judgment,  and  his  spirit  — 

"  whirls 
"  Moved  from  beneath  with  doul)t  and  fear." 

And  now  the  poet,  representing  himself 
as  having  passed  the   period  of  youth,  re- 


122  The  Mind  9f  Tennys9n 

fers  to  the  confident  air  with  which  in 
youth  he  went  forth  in  the  pursuit  of  truth ; 
and  how  he  then  justified  his  doubt  on  the 
grounds  that  it  was  a  means  to  a  noble 
end,  —  the  firmer  establishment  of  truth. 
Furthermore,  the  animal  lives  from  mo- 
ment to  moment,  with  no  fear  or  suspicion 
even  that  life  will  not  continue.  But  shall 
man,  a  rational,  investigating  mind,  live 
thus?     Rather  — 

"  Shall  we  not  look  into  the  laws 
Of  life  and  death,  and  things  that  seem, 
And  things  that  be,  and  analyse 
Our  double  nature,  and  compare 
All  creeds  till  we  have  found  the  one, 
If  one  there  be  ? " 

However  well  this  may  sound,  our  poet 
soon  becomes  conscious  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  not  a  safe  course  for  all  to  pursue,  him- 
self included,  —  at  least  at  this  period  of  his 
career,  —  and,  in  his  wretchedness,  he  calls 
upon  God  for  light. 

"  Ay  me  !  I  fear 
All  may  not  doubt,  but  everywhere 
Some  must  clasp  Idols.     Yet,  my  God, 


Imm$rtality  i2j 

Whom  call  I  Idol  ?     Let  Thy  dove 
Shadow  me  over,  and  my  sins 
Be  unremember'd,  and. Thy  love 
Enlighten  me.     Oh  teach  me  yet 
Somewhat  before  the  heavy  clod 
Weighs  on  me,  and  the  busy  fret 
Of  that  sharp-headed  worm  begins 
In  the  gross  blackness  underneath." 

His  prayer,  however,  fails  to  bring  relief. 
He  is  left  betwixt  doubt  and  belief  and 
does  not  know  which  way  to  turn.  The 
extreme  wretche.dness  of  his  state  of  mind  is 
expressed  in  the  final  words  of  the  poem : 

"  O  weary  life  !     O  weary  death  ! 
O  spirit  and  heart  made  desolate! 
O  damned  vacillating  state  !  " 

This  poem  is  undoubtedly  a  history  of* 
Tennyson's  own  mental  struggle  with  n 
doubt  concerning  the  fundamental  prob- '' 
lems  of  thought  and  life.  More  espe-  i 
cially,  as  he  intimates,  it  represents  his !] 
struggle  with  reference  to  the  problem  of/  i 
immortality.  It  is  a  fair  description  of  the 
experience  peculiar  to  the  mind  as  it,; 
leaves  the  period  of  authority  and  unqucs- 


124-  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

tioning  belief  and  enters  upon  the  period 
of  reflection,  in  which  it  endeavors  to 
rationalise  its  faith,  —  in  which  it  seeks  "  to 
give  a  reason  for  the  faith  "  that  is  within 
it.  This  often  constitutes  a  crisis  in  the 
life  of  the  soul.  Two  ways  out  of  it  usually 
reveal  themselves.  Refuge  may  be  taken 
in  authority,  —  putting  an  end  to  all  ques- 
tioning, and  resting  in  a  blind  faith.  Or, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  Tennyson  himself 
describes  it,  to  refuse  to  make  the  judg- 
ment blind,  —  to  face  ''  the  spectres  of  the 
mind,"  and  lay  them.  Tennyson  adopted 
the  latter  course.  The  adoption  and  carry- 
ing out  of  this  course  brings  us  to  the 
third  period  in  the  development  of  his 
attitude  toward  the  problem  of  immortality. 
This  period  is  one  of  rational  inquiry 
into  the  grounds  of  belief  Serious  doubts 
concerning  it  having  arisen,  —  fortified  by 
the  scientific  investigations  and  reflective 
thought  of  the  age,  —  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  make  an  examination  of  the  subject 
in  the  light  of  what  science  and  philosophy 


Immortality  12^ 

had  to  say.  The  necessity  for  a  personal 
investigation  of  the  question,  as  before 
stated,  seems  to  have  dawned  on  him  in 
connection  with  the  death  of  his  much- 
beloved  friend,  Arthur  Hallam.  Death 
usually  raises  the  question  of  immortality 
in  a  reflective  mind;  and,  as  previously 
suggested,  the  claims  of  Love  to  everlast- 
ing possession  of  its  object,  specially  impel 
man  to  consider  it.  But  we  misinterpret 
Tennyson  if  we  make  his  own  satisfaction 
and  peace  of  mind  the  only  motive  prompt- 
ing him  to  this  inquiry.  He  realised  before 
he  had  reflected  long,  that  his  cry  was  but 
an  echo  of  the  great  cry  of  the  human 
heart ;  that  his  question  was  its  question ; 
and  that  his  answer  might  possibly  be  its 
answer.  This  conviction  soon  became  an 
inspiring  motive  to  an  earnest  inquiry ; 
and  herein  do  we  specially  see  its  ethical 
significance.  Let  us  now  trace  the  devel- 
opment of  this  third  period.^ 

1  It  is  not  meant,  that  throughout  this  period  there 
was  a  non-committal  attitude,  —  an  attitude  of  mere  con- 


126  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

The  first  evidence  of  such  rational  con- 
sideration of  the  subject  revealed  by  his 
poetry  is  found  in  a  poem  entitled  The 
x^  Two  Voices.^  This  is  a  philosophical 
poem.  Its  real  subject  is,  "  The  Worth  of 
Life."  It  consists  of  a  series  of  arguments 
and  counter-arguments  in  which  the  pros 

sideration  of  pros  and  cons.  Sometimes,  we  find  him 
in  great  perplexity  of  mind ;  sometimes,  in  doubt  and 
despair;  again,  apparently  well-gromided  in  faith.  .But 
the  essential  point  is,  that  during  this  period  of  more 
than  fifty  years  the  subject  is  under  rational  consider- 
ation. He  endeavors  to  determine  the  grounds  of 
belief  in  immortaUty,  and  to  proclaim  and  rationally 
defend  the  Faith.  This  long  period  may,  in  a  sense, 
be  divided  into  two.  The  first,  in  which  he  specially 
struggles  with  his  own  doubts,  suggested  in  a  measure, 
and  strengthened,  by  the  doubts  of  his  age.  This  closes 
with  /«  Memoriam,  in  the  prologue  of  which  he  strikes 
a  note  of  triumph  — 

"  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust." 

The  second,  is  subsequent  to  In  Memoriam,  in  which 
he  deals  more  especially  with  the  doubts  of  his  age, 
endeavoring  to  make  a  rational  defence  of  his  belief, 
realising  all  of  the  time  its  vital  importance  as  bearing 
on  human  life.  However,  this  division  must  not  be  re- 
garded too  literally. 

1  First  published  in  the  volume  entitled  English  Idylls 
and  Other  Poems,  1842.  It  then  bore  the  date  of  1833, 
which,  however,  was  removed  afterward. 


Immorfiility  i2y 

and    cons    are    skilfully    presented.      The 
worthlessness  of  life,  and  the  advantages 
of  suicide  as  a  reniedy  for  lifer's  U^^^ 
represented    by   ^.tempting   voice.  _T[he^ 
value  of  life,  and  the  obligation  to  main-^ 
tain   it,    are    represented    by    the   subject 
tempted.     After  the  controversy,  a  voice 
that    "  sees   the   end,"    "  and    knows    the 
good,"  whispers  the  Christian  view  of  life. 
In  the  course  of  the  discussion  the  poet, 
Hamlet-like,  raises  the  question,  whether, 
after  all,  death  would  put  an  end  to  misery. 
It  might  simply  be  a  means  of  going  from 
bad  to  worse.  — 

"  I  toil  beneath  the  curse, 
But,  knowing  not  the  universe, 
I  fear  to  slide  from  bad  to  worse." 

This  apprehension  brings  the  subject  of 
immortality  into  the  discussion,  and,  as  a 
result,  we  have  quite  an  elaborate  argu- 
ment for  and  against  belief  in  man's  im- 
mortal future.  The  first  voice  presents, 
with  considerable  force,  tlie  evidence  from 
sense  against  it.     So  far  as  we  can  observe 


128  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

by  the  senses,  the  dead  give  no  evidence 
of  life.  The  face  of  the  dead  man  is 
expressionless.  It  gives  no  indication  of 
"  passion,  pain,  or  pride."  Neither  is  there 
response  to  a  command.  No  answer  to  a 
grasp  of  the  hand.  Smite  him  on  the  cheek 
and  mouth,  and  he  speaks  not.  — 

"  There  is  no  other  thing  express'd 
But  long  disquiet  merged  in  rest." 

Indeed,    the  things   in    life   which   would 

most  concern  him,  affect  him  not :  — 

"  His  little  daughter,  whose  sweet  face 
He  kiss'd,  taking  his  last  embrace, 
Becomes  dishonour  to  her  race  — 

"  His  sons  grow  up  that  bear  his  name, 
Some  grow  to  honour,  some  to  shame, — 
But  he  is  chill  to  praise  or  blame." 

Absolute  indifference  to  all  things  cosmic 

and  human  is  his  state. 

This    argument   from    sense,    however, 

does  not  appeal  to  the  poet  as  conclusive. 

He  wants  to  know  — 

"Why,  if  man  rot  in  dreamless  ease, 
Should  that  plain  fact,  as  taught  by  these. 
Not  make  him  sure  that  he  shall  cease  ? 


Immortality  i2g 

"  Who  forged  that  other  influence 
That  heat  of  inward  evidence,  'T' 

By  which  he  doubts  against  the  sense  ? " 

This  "  inward  evidence  "  of  spirit  must  ^^ 

be  set  over  against  the  outward  evidence  of  ^  * 

sense.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  although  man 
reads  his  body  '*  as  a  thing  that  dies,"  he 
reads  his  spirit  differently.  He  reads  it  as 
an  entity  surviving  death.  — 

"  He  owns  the  fatal  gift  of  eyes, 
That  read  his  spirit  blindly  wise, 
Not  simple  as  a  thing  that  dies." 

Man's  aspirations  reach   beyond   Time. 
In  his  heart  are  the  forebodings  of  a  great         ^ 
mystery.     In  his  mind  is  the  concept  of 
Eternity.  — 

"  Here  sits  he  shaping  wings  to  fly: 
His  heart  forebodes  a  mystery: 
He  names  the  name  Eternity." 

^  Again,  he  is  richly  endowed.  lie  is  a 
religious,  rational,  and  moral  being.  He 
has    an    ideal    of   the    Perfect.      Nowhere  ^ 

in  Nature  is  it  actualiscd.  Does  it  carry 
us    beyond   Nature   to    the   Supernatural? 

9 


I  JO  The  Mind  of  Teimyson 

He  is  a  being  who  has  conceptions  of  God 

and    of  his    relations    to    Him ;  who  can  / 

reflect  on  his  own  origin  and  destiny;   who 

has  ideals  of  moral  worth,  and  can  impose 

them  upon  himself  as  laws  of  conduct;  a 

being  "  so  God-like  in  faculty,"  must  have 

a  nobler  destiny  than  the  dust. — 

"  That  type  of  Perfect  in  his  mind 
In  Nature  can  he  nowhere  find, 
He  sows  himself  on  every  wind." 

"  He  seems  to  hear  a  Heavenly  Friend, 
And  thro'  thick  veils  to  apprehend 
A  labour  working  to  an  end. 

"  The  end  and  the  beginning  vex 
His  reason:  many  things  perplex, 
With  motions,  checks,  and  counterchecks. 

"  He  knows  a  baseness  in  his  blood 
At  such  strange  war  with  something  good, 
He  may  not  do  the  thing  he  would." 

Furthermore,  man  has  a  kind  of  spir-  ^ 

itual  vision  of  the  immortal  life :  — 

"  Heaven  opens  inward,  chasms  yawn, 
Vast  images  in  glimmering  dawn. 
Half  shown,  are  broken  and  withdrawn.*' 


Immortality  iji 

All  of  this  constitutes  the  '*  inward  evi- 
dence "  of  spirit  which  leads  man  to  doubt  ^ 
the  outward  evidence  of  sense.  The  poet 
thinks  the  unbeliever  slain  by  his  own 
weapon,  —  Doubt ;  that  the  fact  that  man 
doubts  against  the  outward  evidence  of 
sense,  constitutes  a  pre-supposition  in  favor 
of  belief  in  immortality.  >^«^ 

But  the   unbeliever  resumes.     There  is    .,  a^  " 

other  evidence  which  makes  against  belief  'l^,,.^'^ 
in  immortality.  **  To  begin,  implies  to 
end."  Man  has  had  a  beginning;  he 
must,  therefore,  have  an  end.  Whatever 
force  this  thesis  may  have, — -and  the  poet 
thinks  it  has  very  little,  —  is  offset,  in  his 
judgment,  by  the  intimations  which  man 
has  of  his  pre-existence,  —  that  he  was  not, 
at  least,  first  cast  "in  human  mould." 
This  is  merely  dreaming  and  not  argu- 
ment to  the  sceptic,  and  he  shrewdly 
calls  attention  to  the  main  question  under 
consideration  —  The  Worth  of  Life  —  by 
pointing  to  something  which  is  not  a 
dream  but  a  rcalitv.  — 


IJ2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  '  I  talk,'  said  he, 
'  Not  with  tliy  dreams.     Suffice  it  thee 
Thy  pain  is  a  reality.' " 

The  poet,  however,  is  not  convinced 
by  the  gloomy  representations  of  the  un- 
believing voice  that  life  is  not  worth  liv- 
ing, and  closes  the  discussion  with  the 
affirmation  of  a  fact  which  is  regarded  by 
many  as  constituting  one  of  the  strongest 
grounds  for  belief  in  the  soul's  immor- 
tality; namely,  that  it  is  not  death,  but 
life  —  larger,  fuller,  completer  life  —  which 
i    man  desires.  — 

\         '^  Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith, 

No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath 
Has  ever  truly  long'd  for  death. 

"Tis  life,  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant. 
Oh  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant; 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  I  want." 

Some  light  on  the  subjective  or  personal 
character  of  this  poem  may  be  gained 
from  the  following  words  contained  in  the 
Memoir:  ^     "When    I    wrote     The     Tzvo 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  193  n. 


t 


Immortality  ijj 

Voices"  says  Tennyson  to  his  son,  **  I  was 
utterly  miserable,  a  burden  to  myself  and 
to  my  family,  that  I  said,  *  Is  life  worth 
anything? '  "  We  have  seen  above  what  a 
?^onspicu^us_place  immortality  occupies  in 
his  answer  to  the  question  raised ;  hence, 
undoubtedly,  the  earnest  consideration  of 
the  subject  which  this  poem  reveals. 
,, ,  .  The  next  evidence  of  such  rational  con- 
sideration  of  the  question  in  his  poetry,  is 
found  in  In  Mejnoriani,  Very  naturally 
we  expect  to  find  the  fullest  development 
of  his  thought  here;  and,  indeed,  a  care- 
ful examination  of  this  great  work  brings 
no  disappointment  in  this  respect.  We 
find  here  the  same  consideration  of  the 
pros  and  cons  which  is  manifest  in  TJie 
Two  Voices y  but  the  reflection  is  more 
profound. 

Tennyson  himself  has  explained  the 
nature  of  the  poem.  He  said:  "It  must 
be  remembered  that  this  is  a  poem,  not  an 
actual  biography.  It  is  founded  on  our 
friendship,  on  the  engagement  of  Arthur 


/j^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Hallam  to  my  sister,  on  his  sudden  death 
at  Vienna,  just  before  the  time  fixed  for 
their  marriage,  and  on  his  burial  at  Cleve- 
don  Church.  The  poem  concludes  with 
the  marriage  of  my  youngest  sister  Cecilia. 
It  was  meant  to  be  a  kind  of  Divina  Com- 
mediay  ending  with  happiness.  The  sec- 
tions were  written  at  many  different  places, 
and  as  the  phases  of  our  intercourse  came 
to  my  memory  and  suggested  them.  I  did 
not  write  them  with  any  view  of  weaving 
them  into  a  whole,  or  for  publication, 
antil  I  found  that  I  had  written  so  many. 
The  different  moods  of  sorrow  as  in  a 
drama  are  dramatically  given,  and  my 
conviction  that  fear,  doubts,  and  suffering 
will  find  answer  and  relief  only  through 
Faith  in  a  God  of  Love."^ 

The  reflective  consideration  of  the  ques- 
tion of  immortality  in  In  Memoriam  be- 
gins with  poems  xxxiv.-xxxv.^     Here  the 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.  pp.  304,  305. 

2  It  is  very  difficult,  if  not,  indeed,  impossil^le, 
to  determine  the  chronological  order  of  the  poems  of 
In  Memoriatn.      Their    composition  covers    a    period 


Immortality  ij^ 

poet  affirms  immortality  to  be  an  inference 

based  upon  human  life  itself.     If  life  is  to 

be  crowned  by  death,  if  it  is  not  to  *'  live 

for  evermore,"  then  earth  is   a   dark  and 

meaningless   affair.     This  is  the  teaching 

of  life  itself.  — 

"  My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this, 
That  life  shall  live  for  evermore, 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core. 
And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is ; 

*'  This  round  of  green,  this  orb  of  flame, 
Fantastic  beauty  ;  such  as  lurks 
In  some  wild  Poet,  when  he  works 
Without  a  conscience  or  an  aim." 

Such  a  conception  or  supposition  as  this 

means    a  Godless  world,  and   this   means 

the  collapse  of  the  religious  nature, — the 

destruction  of  religious  ideals.      With  an 

earth  that  is  *'  darkness  at  the  core,"  whose 

beauty  is  **  fantastic  "  rather  than  rational ; 

with   **  dust  and  ashes    all    that  is,"   what 

does  "God"    mean    to  the  human    soul? 

This  is  why  the  poet  asks  the   question,  — 

"  What  then  were  God  to  such  as  I  ?  " 

of  seventeen   years.     In  the  al)ove  treatment  the  usual 
order  of  the  poems  has  been  followed. 


ij6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Furthermore,  this  means  the  worthless- 
ness  of  life  itself.  Mortal  things  are  hardly- 
worth  the  choosing.  The  virtue  of  pa- 
tience, even  in  a  small  measure,  is  not 
worth  exercising.  Indeed,  life  is  really 
not  worth  living,  —  it  were  better,  at  once, 
to  cease  to  be.  — 

"  'T  were  hardly  worth  my  while  to  choose 
Of  things  all  mortal,  or  to  use 
A  little  patience  ere  I  die  ; 

"  'T  were  best  at  once  to  sink  to  peace, 
Like  birds  the  charming  serpent  draws, 
To  drop  head-foremost  in  the  jaws 
Of  vacant  darkness  and  to  cease." 

4  Again,  Love  were  an  impossibility,  if 
death  were  seen  at  first  merely  as  death. 
Or,  if  possible,  it  would  be  an  exceedingly 
poor,  narrow,  sluggish,  and  coarse  affair, 
scarcely  rising  above  brutish  passion. 
This,  to  the  poet,  is  an  important  consid- 
eration. He  puts  the  case  thus:  Sup- 
pose "  some  voice  that  man  could  trust " 
would  tell  him  that  death  means  ex- 
tinction.    Still  it  might  be  said,  that  it  is 


Immortality  ijy 

worth  while  even  here  to  strive  *'  to  keep 
so  sweet  a  thing "  as  Love  aHve.  But 
consciousness  of  the  mortaHty  of  Love 
as  involved  in  his  own  mortality  would 
lessen  its  sweetness.  It  would  become 
even  in  life  a  "  half-dead "  affair.  He 
then  adds :  — 

"  O  me,  what  profits  it  to  put 

An  idle  case  ?     If  Death  were  seen 
At  first  as  Death,  Love  had  not  been, 
Or  been  in  narrowest  working  shut, 

"  Mere  fellowship  of  sluggish  moods, 
Or  in  his  coarsest  Satyr-shape 
Had  bruised  the  herb  and  crush'dthe  grape, 
And  bask'd  and  batten'd  in  the  woods." 

After  numerous  indications  of  his  faith 
in  immortality  in  various  poems  of  7/2 
Memoriam  ^  which  follow  those  just  con- 
sidered, we  meet  again  with  a  rational 
consideration  of  the  subject  in  poems 
LIV.,  LV_^  and  LVI.  Here  wc  have  a 
supreme  struggle  in  which  the  poet  sum- 

1  Poems  xx'xviiF.,  xi..,   xli.,   xlii.,   xi.iii.,   xi.iv., 

XLV.,  XLVI.,  XLVII.,  1,.,  LI.,  I.I[. 


/ 


ij8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

mons  his  best  energies.  He  reveals  to  us 
the  fact  that  he  has  been  considering  the 
destiny  of  man  in  the  light  of  Nature. 
Tennyson  looked  at  Nature  usually 
through  the  eyes  of  Science.  He  de- 
scribes his  age  as  one  — 

*'  When  Science  reaches  forth  her  arms 

To  feel  from  world  to  world,  and  charms 
Her  secret  from  the  latest  moon." 

Probably  she  can  feel  her  way  into  the 
dark  "  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death," 
and  charm  the  secret  of  the  grave.  It 
may  be  that  she  can  give  an  answer  to 
the  great  question,  "  If  a  man  die,  shall 
he  live  again  ?  "  So  he  turns  to  Nature, 
and  makes  his  appeal.    He  reflects  upon — 

"  The  wish,  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave," 

and  asks  whether  it  may  not  be  traced  to 
the  divine  in  man,  — 

"  The  likest  God  within  the  soul." 

But  inquiring  of  Nature,  he  finds  her  testi- 
mony not  to    be    in  harmony   with    this 


Immortality  ij(p 

wish.  Her  story  is  one  of  destruction  and 
death,  and  thus  gives  rise  to  the  suspicion 
of  a  conflict  between  God  and  herself. 
She,  indeed,  seems  to  be  "  careful  of  the 
type,"  but  indifferent  to,  or  *'  careless  of 
the  single  life."  Often,  of  fifty  attempts 
at  fruitage,  only  one  succeeds.  Death 
thwarts  the  others.  Such  wholesale  de- 
struction and  apparent  waste  are  appalling 
to  the  poet.  They  cause  him  to  falter 
where  he   firmly   trod.     This  divine  wish 

that  — 

"  No  life  shall  fail  beyond  the  grave," 

gets  no  support  from  Nature;  nay,  the 
evidence  which  she  furnishes  is  overwhelm- 
ingly against  it.  So  he  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  question  which  he  has 
raised  is  really  too  large  for  human 
reason.  All  that  he  can  do  is  **  to 
stretch  lame  hands  of  faith."  — 

"  The  wisli,  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave, 
Derives  it  not  from  what  we  have 
The  likest  God  within  the  soul? 


1^0  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  Are  God  and  Nature  then  at  strife, 
That  Nature  lends  such  evil  dreams? 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life ; 

"That  I,  considering  everywhere 
Her  secret  meaning  in  her  deeds, 
And  finding  that  of  fifty  seeds 
She  often  brings  but  one  to  bear, 

"  I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod, 

And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 
Upon  the  great  world's  altar-stairs 
That  slope  thro'  darkness  up  to  God, 

"  I  stretch  lame  hands  of  faith,  and  grope, 
And  gather  dust  and  chaff,  and  call 
To  what  I  feel  is  Lord  of  all, 
And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope." 

But  he  decides  to  inquire  further  of 
Nature  on  this  important  subject.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  she  is  "  careless  of  the 
single  life ;  "  but  it  is  said  she  is  "  careful 
of  the  type."  But  is  this  really  so  ?  The 
statement  hardly  seems  to  be  substanti- 
ated by  the  evidence.  The  facts  rather 
indicate  the  contrary.  Nature  is  even 
careless  of  the  type;  for  — 


Immortality  .i'lAi 

*'  From  scarped  cliff  and  quarried  stone 

She  cries,  '  A  thousand  types  are  gone : 
I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go.'  " 

No  immortality  of  the  individual;  no 
immortality  of  the  species.  This  seems 
to  be  the  teaching^  of  Nature.  So  far  as 
this  throws  light  on  human  immortality, 
it  strongly  indicates  the  improbability  of 
either  a  personal  or  race  immortality. 
And,  as  though  this  answer  of  Nature 
were  not  sufficiently  sweeping,  she  con- 
tinues mercilessly:  — 

"  '  Thou  makest  thine  appeal  to  me  : 
I  bring  to  life,  I  bring  to  death : 
The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath  : 
I  know  no  more.'  " 

But,  discpuraging  as  is  this  response 
to  his  appeal,  the  poet  is  loath  to  let  the 
matter   rest    here.      He   is   not    satisfied. 

/  All  that  Nature  has  revealed  thus  far  in 
her  answer  to  his  inquiry  may  be  true  of 

i    other  beinf^s,  but  is  it  true  of  man  —  her 

!        

<    last  and  supreme  work  —  so  wonderful  in 
\^\  nature  and  achievement?     Is  this  all  that 


1^2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

science  can  say  of  the  destiny  of  a  be- 
ing who  stands  on  the  very  summit  of 
creation ;  whose  eyes  glow  with  *'  splen- 
did purpose ;  "  whose  powerful  religious 
instincts  impel  him  to  "roll  the  psalm" 
even  *'to  wintry  skies,"  —  to  put  his 
trust  in  God  as  Love,  and  in  Love  as 
God's  law,  despite  the  fact  that  Nature, 
red  with  the  blood  of  the  conflict  of 
ages,  shrieks  against  his  creed?  Is  this 
all  that  science  can  say  of  the  destiny  of 
him  who  loves  and  suffers;  who  has 
moral  ideals,  and  battles  ''  for  the  True, 
the  Just?"  Is  it  possible  that  such  a 
being  —  so  exalted  in  creation,  so  dig- 
nified in  being,  so  noble  in  endeavor  — 
•U  has  no  other  destiny  than  to  — ■ 

"  Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust, 
Or  seal'd  within  the  iron  hills  "  ? 

If  so,  then,  indeed,  is  man  "a  monster," 
"  a  discord;  "  then,  too,  is  life  as  "  futile" 
as  it  is  "frail."  The  words  of  the  poet  are 
very    earnest    and    impressive,    revealing 


Immortality  14.3 

how  profoundly  interested  in,  and  how 
deeply  he  feels,  concerning  Nature's  re- 
sponse to  his  important  appeal.  — 

" '  So  careful  of  the  type  ? '  but  no. 

From  scarped  cliff  and  quarried  stone 
She  cries,  '  A  thousand  types  are  gone : 
I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go. 

"  '  Thou  makest  thine  appeal  to  me : 
I  bring  to  life,  I  bring  to  death  : 
The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath  : 
I  know  no  more.'     And  he,  shall  he, 

"  Man,  her  last  work,  who  seem'd  so  fair, 
Such  splendid  purpose  in  his  eyes, 
Who  roll'd  the  psalm  to  wintry  skies, 
Who  built  him  fanes  of  fruitless  prayer, 

"  Who  trusted  God  was  love  indeed 
And  love  Creation's  final  law  — 
Tho'  Nature,  red  in  truth  and  claw 
With  ravine,  shriek'd  against  his  creed  — 

"  Who  loved,  who  suffer'd  countless  ills, 
Who  battled  for  the  True,  the  Just, 
Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust. 
Or  seal'd  within  the  iron  hills? 

"  No  more  ?     A  monster  then,  a  dream, 
A  discord.     Dragons  of  the  prime, 
That  tear  each  other  in  their  slime. 
Were  mellow  music  match'd  with  liim. 


7/^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  O  life  as  futile,  then,  as  frail ! 

O  for  thy  voice  to  soothe  and  bless ! 
What  hope  of  answer,  or  redress  ? 
Behind  the  veil,  behind  the  veil." 

Passing  now  to  poem  LXXXII.,^  we 
find  the  poet  reflecting  again  upon  the 
subject  of  human  immortality.  We  have 
here  a  presentation  of  at  least  a  quasi- 
argument  for  belief  in  the  future  Hfe. 
There  is  an  **  Eternal  Process,"  and  man 
is  involved  in  it.  Death  does  not  stop 
the  onward  march  of  the  spirit.  It  is 
rather  a  means  of  furthering  its  progress. 
The  body,  of  course,  is  mortal,  and  re- 
turns to  dust.  But  these  remains  are  but 
"  the  shatter'd  stalks  "  or  "  ruin'd  chrys- 
alis" of  a  being  progressing  from  state 
to  state.     Death  may  bear  — 

"  The  use  of  virtue  out  of  earth : " 

but  the  poet  knows  that  — 

"  transplanted  human  worth 
Will  bloom  to  profitj  otherwhere." 

1  Poems  Lx.,  LXi.,  lxii.,  lxiii,,  lxiv.,  lxv.,  lxvi., 
Lxxv.,  and  Lxxxi.,  indicate  belief  in  immortality. 


Immortality  7^5 

Poem  CXVIII.,^  presents  a  new  phase  of 
the  old  argument  based  on  the  dignity 
of  human  nature,  and  its  place  in  crea- 
tion. The  law  of  "  the  solid  earth's  "  for- 
mation has  been  the  law  of  evolution  — 
the  law  of  progress  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher,  until  at  last  ''arose  the  man;" 
who,  if  he  typify  this  great  law  of  Time, 
is  himself  not  only  — 

"  The  herald  of  a  higher  race," 

but  also  — 

"  of  himself  in  higher  place.'' 

When  we  remember  this  great  progres- 
sive movement  of  Nature,  and  that  man 
is  involved  in  it,  we  must  believe  in  the 
immortality  of  human  love  and  truth; 
that  the  dead  "  breathe  an  ampler  day," 
''  for  ever  nobler  ends." 

And  now  we  find  the  poet  considering 
the  argument  against  belief  in  immortality. 
In  three  poems  he  reveals   his  reflections 

1  Poems  Lxxxiv.,  lxxxv.,  xc,  xct.,  xcii.,  xctii., 
XCiv.,  xcv.,  cxvi.,  and  cxvii.,  are  indicative  of  belief 
in  immortality. 

ID 


-^ 


/)/• 


14-6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

upon  the  claims  of  Materialism,  Panthe- 
I         ism,  and  one  form  of  the  argument  from 
^  "    Sense.     In     poem     CXX.,    he    deals    with 

Materialism.  Materialistic  science  denies 
the  reality  of  a  distinct  entity  or  agent 
called  the  mind  or  soul.  All  psychic 
activity  is  really,  in  the  final  analysis, 
merely  a  higher  form  of  cerebral  activity. 
All  mind  activity  is  brain  activity.  Hence, 
ultimately  considered,  we  are  merely ''cun- 
ning casts  in  clay."  The  conclusion  is 
evident  and  inevitable.  When  death 
breaks  these  casts,  only  unformed  clay 
remains.  From  unformed  clay  we  came; 
of  organized  clay  we  are ;  to  disorganized 
clay  we  return.  This,  undoubtedly,  is 
Tennyson's  interpretation  of  the  view  of 
man  taken  by  materialistic  science.  Un- 
fortunately, he  does  not  meet  these  views 
in  his  wonted  manner.  In  the  Introduc- 
tion, attention  was  called  to  the  fact  of  his 
unwillingness  to  "  make  his  judgment 
blind."  Here,  however,  we  find  an  in- 
stance   of  deviation    from    his   customary 


Immortality  i^y 

attitude  of  mind.  Science  may /r^z'^  this 
materialistic  conception  of  the  origin  and 
nature  of  man,  with  its  necessary  implica- 
tions concerning  his  destiny.  But  that 
makes  no  difference  to  our  poet;  he  is 
resolved  to  take  a  higher  view,  in  spite  of 
proof  to  the  contrary.  It  is  one  of  the 
very  few  instances  in  all  of  Tennyson's 
reflections,  as  revealed  by  his  poetry,  in 
which  he  manifests  a  willingness  to  take 
refuge  in  blind  faith.^     He  says :  — 

"  I  trust  I  have  not  wasted  breath  : 
I  think  we  are  not  wholly  brain, 
Magnetic  mockeries ;  not  in  vain, 
Like  Paul  with  beasts,  I  fought  with  Death ; 

"  Not  only  cunning  casts  in  clay  : 

Let  Science  prove  we  are,  and  then 
What  matters  Science  unto  men, 
At  least  to  me  ?     I  would  not  stay. 

*'  Let  him,  tlie  wiser  man  wlio  springs 
Hereafter,  up  from  childhood  shape 
His  action  like  the  greater  ape, 
But  I  was  bor>i  to  other  things." 

1  Another  instance  may  be  found  in  poem  cxxiv., 
3.4. 


/ 


1^8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

As  in  the  preceding  poem,  so  in  poem 
CXXIII.,  we  find  him  reflecting  on  the 
evidence  which  makes  against  an  immor- 
tal future  for  man.  Here,  as  in  The  Two 
Voices,  only  in  different  form,  it  is  the 
testimony  of  sense.  It  is  the  great  fact 
of  change.  Everything  changes  and 
seems  to  come  to  naught.  He  considers 
(\.*-^'^  ^  this  perishable  nature  of  things  in  its 
V  bearing   upon  belief  in   the    imperishable 

nature  of  the  soul.  Does  it  not  indicate 
the  soul's  mortality  —  that  it,  too,  comes 
and  goes,  and  is  no  more?  Transiency 
is  written  on  the  face  of  all  things ;  why 
not  on  the  soul?  The  last  verse  of  the 
poem  indicates  that  this  is  really  the  ques- 
tion which  engages  his  thought.  It  indi- 
cates also,  that,  despite  the  fact  of  universal 
change,  he  will  not  believe  it  involves  the 
soul's  destruction. 

"There  rolls  the  deep  where  grew  the  tree. 
O  earth,  what  changes  hast  thou  seen  ! 
There  where  the  long  street  roars  hath  been 
The  stillness  of  the  central  sea. 


Immortality  j^g 

"  The  hills  are  shadows,  and  they  flow 

From  form  to  form,  and  nothing  stands; 
They  melt  like  mist,  the  solid  lands, 
Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves  and  go. 

*'  But  in  my  spirit  will  I  dwell, 

And  dream  my  dream,  and  hold  it  true  ; 
For  tho'  my  lips  may  breathe  adieu, 
I  cannot  think  the  thing  farewell." 

In  poem  cxxx.,  he  reflects  upon  the 
Pantheistic  doctrine  of  absorption  into  the 
Infinite  after  death.  This  doctrine  is, 
of  course,  opposed  to  personal  immortality. 
It  cancels  the  individuality  of  the  finite 
spirit  by  remergence  "  in  the  general 
soul."  It  is  an  interesting  and  rather 
singular  thing  to  note,  that  a  conception 
which  Tennyson  had  previously  emphati- 
cally rejected  as  — 

"  faith  as  vague  as  all  unsweet," 

affirming  that  the  boundary  lines  of  per- 
sonality shall  be  preserved,  that — • 

"  Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 

The  Eternal  Soul  from  all  beside. 
And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet,''  ^ 

1  Poem  XLVii. 


1^0  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

should  afterward  be,  at  least,  temporarily 
accepted,  as  is  manifest  in  this  poem. 
We  cannot  agree  with  Mr.  Morton  Luce, 
that  the  poem  must  be  interpreted  from 
the  standpoint  of  poetic  license.  The 
affirmations  which  it  contains  are  too  bold 
and  positive  for  that.  Already  in  the 
preceding  poem  he  mingles  "all  the 
world  **  with  his  friend ;  and  here  Arthur's 
voice  is  affirmed  to  be  "on  the  rolling 
air ; "  he  is  heard  "  where  the  waters  run ;  " 
he  is  declared  to  be  in  the  rising  and  set- 
ting sun;  he  seems  to  be  felt  as  "some 
diffusive  power'*  "in  star  and  flower;" 
and,  as  though  the  identification  with 
"  the  All  "  is  not  sufficient,  in  the  above 
affirmations,  he  proceeds  a  step  farther, 
and  declares  his  departed  friend  to  be 
"mixed  with  God  and  Nature."  The 
poem  seems  to  be  an  expression  of  a 
temporary  mood  or  faith  of  the  poet  rather 
than  a  licensed  poetical  expression.  Tern- 
porary  faith,  it  must  be  said,  because  it 
does  not  reflect  any  permanent  belief  on 


^ 


Immortality  i^i 

his  part.  It  is  opposed  to  the  general 
tendency  of  his  thought  and  belief,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  and  as  will  be  manifest 
after  further  investigation. — 

*'  Thy  voice  is  on  the  rolling  air  ; 

I  hear  thee  where  the  waters  run ; 
Thou  standest  in  the  rising  sun, 
And  in  the  setting  thou  art  fair. 

"  Where  art  thou  then  ?  I  cannot  guess  ; 
But  tho'  I  seem  in  star  and  flower 
To  feel  thee  some  diffusive  power, 
I  do  not  therefore  love  thee  less : 

"  My  love  involves  the  love  before  ; 
My  love  is  vaster  passion  now ; 
Tho'  mixed  with  God  and  Nature  thou, 
I  seem  to  love  thee  more  and  more." 

Immediately  following  the  above  canto 
comes  that  superb  declaration  of  his  belief 
in  personal  immortality,  expressed  in  the 
words :  — 

"  O  living  will  that  shalt  endure 
When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock." 

The  reflective  consideration  of  the 
question  of  immortality,  so  far  as  In  Mvm- 
oriani  is  concerned,   ends  willi  the  poem 


1^2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

\  quoted  above,  with  the  exception  of  the 
prologue,  which,  as  previously  stated,  was 
probably  one  of  the  last  written.      Here 

'we  find  another  ground  for  belief  pre- 
sented. The  poet,  after  considering  the 
question  for  seventeen  long  years,  breaks 
forth  in  a  declaration  of  confidence  that 
death  does  not  end  all,  and  bases  this  con- 
fidence on  the  justice  of  God.  — 

"  Thou  madest  Life  in  man  and  brute  ; 
Thou  madest  Death ;  and  lo,  thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skull  which  thou  hast  made. 

"  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why, 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die  ; 
And  thou  hast  made  him  :  thou  art  just." 

The  full  significance  of  these  words  can 
only  be  understood  as  we  read  them  in 
the  light  of  what  he  has  said  elsewhere  on 
the  same  subject.  In  June,  1871,  he 
wrote  a  letter  of  condolence  to  Mrs.  Elm- 
hirst,  his  friend  from  childhood,  whose 
son  had  recently  died.  In  it  he  says: 
"  You  cannot  catch  the  voice,  or  feel  the 


Immortality  i^j 

hands,  or  kiss  the  check,  that  is  all;  a 
separation  for  an  hour,  not  an  eternal 
farewell.  If  it  were  not  so,  that  which 
made  us  would  seem  too  cruel  a  Power  to 
be  worshipped,  and  could  not  be  loved, 
but  I  trust  you  believe  all  this,"  ^  etc.  In 
an  extract  from  Queen  Victoria's  private 
Journal,  dated  Aug.  7,  1883,  we  have  the 
same  attitude  indicated.  We  are  told  here 
that  in  conversation  with  Her  Majesty, "  he 
spoke  with  horror  of  the  unbelievers  and 
philosophers  who  would  make  you  believe 
there  was  no  other  world,  no  Immortality, 
who  tried  to  explain  all  away  in  a  miser- 
able^manner.  We  agreed  that  were  such  a 
thing  possible,  God,  who  is  Love,  would  be 
far  more  cruel  than  any  human  being.  "^ 

This  prologue,  coming  at  the  end  of  his 
long  struggle  with  doubt,  is  very  refresh- 
ing indeed.  There  is  a  calm,  dignified, 
but  triumphant  tone  which  shows  that  the 
poet  has  come  oiit  of  the  long  conflict 
stremrthcncd    in    faith. — 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  105.  ^  Ibid.  457. 


/v. 


1^4.  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  Perplext  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds, 
At  last  he  beat  his  music  out." 

"  He  fought  his  doubts  and  gather'd  strength, 
He  would  not  make  his  judgment  blind, 
He  faced  the  spectres  of  the  mind 
And  laid  them  :  thus  he  came  at  length 

"  To  find  a  stronger  faith  his  own." 

Henceforth  we  find  him  more  especially 
maintaining  the  Faith  against  the  seri- 

\  -v      ous  doubts  of  his  asre. 

\  -,  %  .  /  pj-om  In  Memoriam  we  pass  to  the  cele- 
brated Idylls  of  the  Kiiig.^  Tennyson  un- 
folds to  us  the  real  import  of  the  Idylls 
in  his  words  "To  the  Queen,"  which  he 
appends  to  the  poems  :  — 

"  accept  this  old  imperfect  tale, 
New-old,  and  shadowing-  Sense  at  war  with  Soul." 


-/< 


\  These  poems  portray  the  conflict  between 
the   sensuous    and   the  spiritual  in  man. 

1  There  is  a  reference  to  immortality  in  Maud,  pt.  i., 
sec.  xviii.,  div.  7.  Mr.  Luce  interprets  the  words  as 
follows :  "  The  thought  appears  to  be  twofold :  ist, 
*  The  approach  of  death  should  make  us  dearer  to 
each  other ; '  2nd,  '  But  death  is  immortality,  and  im- 
mortality alone  can  make  love  perfect.'"  —  A  Hand- 
book to  the   Works  of  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  p.  316,  n. 


V 

\ 


Immortality  /j-j 

The  bearing  of  the  Idylls  on  the  subject 
under  consideration  is  seen  in  the  words 
of  the  King,  at  the  close  of  The  Holy 
Grail.  He  tells  his  knights  what  are  the 
duties  of  the  King ;  and  then  of  the  visions 
which  arise  after  those  duties  have  been 
performed.  These  visions  take  him  be- 
yond the  world  of  sense  into  the  spiritual 
realm,  — the  world  of  the  real.  Here 
the  spirit  comes  in  contact  with  itself, 
with  its  Spiritual  Cause,  and  with  its 
spiritual  destiny.  It  perceives  itself  as 
acticaly  rather  than  phenomenal.  It  per- 
ceives God  as  Reality^  rather  than  as 
vision.  It  apprehends  itself  not  "as  a 
thing  that  dies,"  but  as  a  being  immortal. 
The  King  speaks:  — 

" '  And  some  among  you  held,  that  if  the  King 
Had  seen  the  sight  he  would  have  sworn  the  vow : 
Not  easily,  seeing  that  the  King  must  guard 
That  which  he  rules,  and  is  but  as  the  hind 
To  whom  a  space  of  land  is  given  to  plow. 
Who  may  not  wander  from  the  allotted  field 
Before  his  work  be  done  ;  but,  being  done, 
Let  visions  of  the  night  or  of  the  day 


ij6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Com2,  as  they  will ;  and  many  a  time  they  come, 
Until  this  earth  he  walks  on  seems  not  earth, 
This  light  that  strikes  his  eyeball  is  not  light, 
This  air  that  smites  his  forehead  is  not  air 
But  vision  —  yea,  his  very  hand  and  foot  — 
In  moments  when  he  feels  he  cannot  die, 
And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself, 
Nor  the  high  God  a  vision,  nor  that  One 
Who  rose  again. '  " 

Has  Tennyson,  in  all  of  the  superb  crea- 
tions of  his  genius,  ever  given  us  anything 
finer  than  this?  These  are  the  lines 
which  he  pronounced  "the  (spiritually) 
central  lines  of  the  Idylls;  "^  and,  so  far 
as  they  bear  on  our  subject,  they  declare 
that  there  are  supreme  moments  in  the 
life  of  the  soul  when  it  intuits  its  own 
immortality,  —  moments  when  it  feels  it- 
self to  be  not  a  perishable,  temporal  thing, 
but  an  imperishable,  immortal  spirit; 
moments  when  it  feels  it  cannot  die.  v 
Passing  from  the  Idylls  to  the  volume 
entitled    Tiresias,  and  other  Poems, '^  we 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  90. 

2  Published    1885.     The    volume    entitled    Ballads, 
and  other  Poems,  published  1880,   has   several   refer- 


Immortality  i^y 

f\  meet  with  a  poem,  —  TJie  Charge  of  the 
'•J  ^ Heavy  Brigade  at  Balaclava.^  In  the 
Epilogice  there  is  a  positive  declaration 
of  Tennyson's  belief  in  immortality,  with 
a  semi-argumentative  presentation  of  the 
same.  He  affirms  the  vanity  of  deed  and 
song,  if  man  be  not  immortal;  and  that 
man's  moral  achievements  will  continue 
as  a  moulding  force  in  the  life  after  death. 
The  Epilogue  is  a  poem  favoring  peace 
rather  than  war.  It  represents  a  conver- 
sation between  Irene  (Greek  word  for 
Peace)  and  a  poet,  Irene  tells  the  poet 
that  he  will  never  set  his  name  — 

"  A  star  among  the  stars," 

by  praising  that  which  should  be  blamed, 
namely,  "The  barbarism  of  wars."  The 
poet  replies  that  he  has  been  misun- 
derstood. He  wants  wars  to  cease.  He 
merely  contends  that  it  is  right  to  crown 

ences  to  immortality.  However,  they  are  not  important 
for  our  purpose.  They  occur  in  Rizpah,  The  Sisters^ 
Dedicatory  Poan  to  the  Princess  Alice,  and  Dc  Pro- 
fun  dis. 

1  First  published  in  Mcumillan^s  Magazine,  iSSi. 


1^8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

the  warrior's  noble  deeds  with  song.     He 

hopes  the  crown  may  last,  but  affirms  that — 

"  Song  will  vanish  in  the  vast." 

Irene  objects  to  this  affirmation,  and  the 
poet  yields  to  the  objection,  modifying 
his  previous  statement  by  saying,  that 
"deed  and  song"  will  pass  away  and  be 
in  vain,  unless  "man  himself  remain." 
And,  says  the  poet,  remain  he  will,  and 
so  will  his  moral  achievement,  serving  to 
mould  him  in  the  life  beyond  the  grave. — 

"  Let  it  live  then  —  ay,  till  when  ? 

Earth  passes,  all  is  lost 
In  what  they  prophesy,  our  wise  men, 

Sun-flame  or  sunless  frost, 
And  deed  and  song  ahke  are  swept 

Away,  and  all  in  vain 
As  far  as  man  can  see,  except 

The  man  himself  remain  ; 
And  tho',  in  this  lean  age  forlorn. 

Too  many  a  voice  may  cry 
That  man  can  have  no  after-morn, 

Not  yet  of  these  am  I. 
The  man  remains,  and  whatsoe'er 

He  wrought  of  good  or  brave 
Will  mould  him  thro'  the  cycle-year 

That  dawns  behind  the  grave." 


Immortality  i^g 

If,  in  the  next  place,  we  turn  to  Tire- 
sias,  we  find  Tennyson,  in  the  Epilogue, 
postulating  immortality  on  the  ground  of 
the  uselessness  of  life,  if  man  be  not  im- 
mortal.  In  1883,  Tennyson  sent  this 
poem,  "  dating  many  years  ago, "  to  Edward 
Fitzgerald,^  an  old  friend.  It  was  found 
by  his  son  Hallam  "  in  some  forgotten 
book  "  of  the  poet.  It  was  published  in 
the  volume  of  1885,  already  referred  to. 
The  Epilogue  is  very  touching.  It  refers 
to  the  death  of  Fitzgerald,  or  "old  Fitz," 
as  Tennyson  fondly  called  him.  Referring 
pathetically  to  their  friendship,  he  says,  — 

"  Gone  into  darkness,  that  full  light 

Of  friendship  !  past,  in  sleep,  away 
By  night,  into  the  deeper  night ! 

The  deeper  night  ?  A  clearer  day 
Than  our  poor  twilight  dawn  on  earth  — 

If  night,  what  barren  toil  to  be  ! 
What  life,  so  maim'd  by  night,  were  worth 

Our  living  out  ?  Not  mine  to  me 
Remembering  all  the  golden  hours 

Now  silent,  and  so  many  dead, 
And  him  the  last." 

1  The  translator  of  the  Rnbaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam, 


i6o  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

In  this  volume  of  1885  is  contained  also 
TJie  Aiicient  Sage.  The  nature  of  this 
speculative  poem  has  already  been  ex- 
plained, and  a  partial  analysis  of  it  given 
so  far  as  it  bears  on  the  problem  of  the 
being  and  nature  of  God.  But  the  poem 
also  deals  with  the  question  of  immor- 
tality. The  agnostic  and  materialistic 
youth  presents  his  views  on  this  subject 
in  the  "scroll  of  verse,"  and  the  sage 
replies  to  them.  In  our  previous  analysis 
we  had  reached  the  point  where  the 
youth  recognises  no  other  Deity  than 
Time,  and  he  proceeds  to  call  attention 
to  its  destructive  power,  insinuating  that 
eventually  man  must  succumb  to  it  and 
be  no  more.  He  presents,  in  a  very  for- 
cible manner,  the  argument  of  change,  as 
manifest  in  the  gradual  decline  of  man's 
powers :  — 

"  '  The  statesman's  brain  that  sway'd  the  past. 
Is  feebler  than  his  knees  ; 
The  passive  sailor  wrecks  at  last 
In  ever-silent  seas ; 


Immortality  i6i 

The  warrior  hath  forgot  his  arms, 

The  Learned  all  his  lore  ; 
The  changing  market  frets  or  charms 

The  merchant's  hope  no  more; 
The  prophet's  beacon  burn'd  in  vain, 

And  now  is  lost  in  cloud  ; 
The  plowman  passes,  bent  with  pain. 

To  mix  with  what  he  plow'd  ; 
The  poet  whom  his  Age  would  quote 

As  heir  of  endless  fame — 
He  knows  not  ev'n  the  book  he  wrote, 

Not  even  his  own  name. 
For  man  has  overlived  his  day, 

And  darkening  in  the  light. 
Scarce  feels  the  senses  break  away 

To  mix  with  ancient  Night.'" 


*&' 


But,  says  the  sage  in  reply,  — 

"  The  shell  must  break  before  the  bird  can  fly." 

— —  _^^^  ■  ■-■■cUJU.tJiLiifJiwn'iijr"'' •^** 

■  In.*    ■■■II       ,  _,,  -^ *■"****'*>*■(»■*» WMMW***"*'*^'**'^^^^ 

The  decline  and  dissolution  of  the  body  .„. 
merely    liberate     the    spirit.       But    the 
youth  in  the  scroll  continues: —  / 

"  *  The  years  that  when  my  Youth  began 
Had  set  the  lily  and  rose 
By  all  my  ways  where'er  they  ran, 

Have  ended  mortal  foes  ; 
My  rose  of  love  for  ever  gone, 
My  lily  of  truth  and  trust  — 
II 


i62  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

They  made  her  lily  and  rose  in  one, 

And  changed  her  into  dust. 
O  rose  tree  planted  in  my  grief, 

And  growing,  on  her  tomb, 
Her  dust  is  greening  in  your  leaf, 

Her  blood  is  in  your  bloom. 
O  slender  lily  waving  there, 

And  laughing  back  the  light. 
In  vain  you  tell  me  "  Earth  is  fair  " 

When  all  is  dark  as  night.'  " 

But,  says  the  sage,  this  is  a  misinterpre- 
tation of  the  work  of  Time.  Man  is  im- 
mortal, and  awaits  "the  second  state 
sublime,"  when  he  can  view  this  work  of 
Time  from  the  standpoint  of  "  the  last  and 
largest  sense."  This  sense  will  reveal  to 
him  the  true  interpretation, — "that  the 
world  is  wholly  fair." 

"My  son,  the  world  is  dark  with  griefs  and  graves, 
So  dark  that  men  cry  out  against  the  Heavens. 
Who  knows  but  that  the  darkness  is  in  man? 
The  doors  of  Night  may  be  the  gates  of  Light ; 
For  wert  thou  born  or  blind  or  deaf,  and  then 
Suddenly  heal'd,  how  would'st  thou  glory  in  all 
The  splendours  and  the  voices  of  the  world  ! 
And  we,  the  poor  earth's  dying  race,  and  yet 
No  phantoms,  watching  from  a  phantom  shore, 


Immortality  i6j 

Await  the  last  and  largest  sense  to  make 
The  phantom  walls  of  this  illusion  fade, 
And  show  us  that  the  world  is  wholly  fair." 

Perusing  the  scroll  again,  the  sage  finds 
it  still  affirming  the  mortality  of  man: 

"  For  all  that  laugh,  and  all  that  weep 
And  all  that  breathe  are  one 
Slight  ripple  on  the  boundless  deep 
That  moves,  and  all  is  gone." 

But,  says  the  sage,  in  reply,  man  is 
conscious  of  his  immortality  in  his  very 
relation  to  this  "boundless  deep." 

"  But  that  one  ripple  on  the  boundless  deep 
Feels  that  the  deep  is  boundless,  and  itself 
For  ever  changing  form,  but  evermore 
One  with  the  boundless  motion  of  the  deep." 

And,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  scroll,  that 
"the  darkness  of  the  pall "  should  be  for- 
gotten in  wine  and  golden  music,  the 
sage  takes  occasion  to  remark,  that  not 
only  the  darkness  associated  with  life,  but 
also  that  associated  with  death  is  a  misin- 
terpretation. There  arc  stars  that  shine 
in  the  night.      There  are  some,  too,  that 


i6^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

never  set,  but  pass  beyond  the  range  of 
mortal  vision  "to  lose  themselves  in  day. " 
There  is  a  happier  and  worthier  view  of 
death.  "  The  dead  are  not  dead. "  They 
live,  and  their  lot  is  a  higher  and  happier 
one  than  ours.  Therefore,  they  should 
be  borne  "to  burial  or  to  burning,"  not 
on  the  black  bier  which  stands  for  nega- 
tion, but  in  white,  — 

"  With  songs  in  praise  of  death,  and  crown'd  with 
flowers  ! "  ^ 

But  there  is   continued  affirmation   in 
the  scroll  of  man's  mortality. 

"  O  worms  and  maggots  of  to-day 
Without  their  hope  of  wings !  " 

"  Tho'  some  have  gleams  or  so  they  say 
Of  more  than  mortal  things." 

The  sage  confesses  himself  to  be  one  of 
those  who  have  had  such  "gleams." 
They  have  given  him  an  insight  into  that 
which  lies  beyond  "the  gates  of  birth  and 

1  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  anything  more  hopeful 
and  cheerful  than  this  in  all  literature. 


Immortality  i6^ 

death."  Pre-existence  and  immortality 
have  been  revealed  to  him  by  these 
"gleams."  Of  the  gleams  of  the  immor- 
tal life  he  says :  — 

"  for  more  than  once  when  I 
Sat  all  alone,  revolving  in  myself 
The  word  that  is  the  symbol  of  myself, 
The  mortal  limit  of  the  Self  was  loosed, 
And  past  into  the  Nameless,  as  a  cloud 
Melts    into   Heaven.     I    touch'd    my   limbs,   the 

limbs 
Were   strange   not   mine  —  and  yet   no  shade  of 

doubt, 
But  utter  clearness,  and  thro'  loss  of  Self 
The  gain  of  such  large  life  as  match 'd  with  ours 
Were  Sun  to  spark  —  unshadowable  in  words, 
Themselves  but  shadows  of  a  shadow- world." 

Tennyson  here,  in  the  reply  of  the  sage, 
is  referring  to  a  personal  experience 
which  constituted  for  him  a  ground  for 
believing  in  the  soul's  immortality.  It 
was  a  trance  experience  which  was  not 
uncommon  with  him.  He  refers  to  it  in 
the  ninety-fifth  poem  of  /;/  ]\rcinoyiam. 
In  the  experience  there  described  he  was 
brought    into    contact   with    the  spirit  of 


< 


i66  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

the  dead.  He  came  face  to  face  also  with 
the  real  —  the  Eternal  —  and  had  a  pro- 
found sense  of  his  own  immortality.      He 

"  came  on  that  which  is,  and  caught 
The  deep  pulsations  of  the  world," 

"  Ionian  music  measuring  out 

The  steps  of  Time  —  the  shocks  of  Chance 
The  blows  of  Death." 

In  the  description  given  in  The  Ancient 
Sage,  he  tells  us  that  — 

"  The  mortal  limit  of  the  self  was  loosed,"  — 

and  he  entered  upon  — 

"  such  large  life  as  match'd  with  ours 
Were  Sun  to  spark." 

We  have  still    another   description  of 
this  trance  experience  in  words  of  Tenny- 
son recorded  in  the  Memoir:  ^  "  A  kind  of  j 
waking  trance  I  have  frequently  had,  quite 


up  from  boyhood,  when  I  have  been  all  (  , 
alone.  This  has  generally  come  upon  \  < 
me  thro'  repeating  my  own  name  two  or  \  '^ 
three  times  to  myself  silently,  till  all  at 


1  Vol.  i.,  p.  320. 


t 


Immortality  i6y 

once,  as  it  were  out  of  the  intensity  of  the 
consciousness  of  individuality,  the  indi- 
viduality itself  seemed  to  dissolve  and 
fade  away  into  boundless  being,  and  this 
not  a  confused  state,  but  the  clearest  of 
the  clearest,  the  surest  of  the  surest,  the 
weirdest  of  the  weirdest,  utterly  beyond 
words,  where  death  was  an  almost  laugh- 
able impossibility,  the  loss  of  personality 
(if  so  it  were)  seemed  no  extinction  but 
the  only  true  life.  "^^  ^.  ^ 

These  "  gleams  "  of  pre-existence  and 
immortality,  these  gleams  "of  more  than 
mortal  things,"  are  merely  "idle  gleams" 
to  the  youth,  as  the  scroll  reveals.  They 
are  transient  "but  the  clouds  remain." 
But  what  are  idle  gleams  to  the  youth  are 
"light"  to  the  sage;  and  he  urges  the 
youth  to  forsake  the  life  of  the  flesh  —  the 
lower  life  of  selfishness  —  which  clouds 
the  spiritual  vision;  and  enjoins  him  to 
enter  upon  the  moral  life  —  the  higher  life 
of  service  to  self  and  others;  then,  climb- 

^  This  is  a  close  approach  to  Pantheism. 


i68  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

ing  the  Mount  of  Blessing,  perchance  he 
may  catch  a  glimpse  of  immortality,  he 
may  see,  "past  the  range  of  Night  and 
Shadow,"  — 

"  The  high-heaven  dawn  of  more  than  mortal  day 
Strike  on  the  Mount  of  Vision  ! " 

In  Locks  ley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After t^ 
there  is  a  fine  passage  expressing  Tenny- 
son's faith  in  immortality,  with  more  or 
less  of  a  justification  of  it.  He  callsit^ 
"the  leading  light  of  man."  He  com- 
ments on  the  universality  of  the  belief; 
and  finally  affirms  that  such  noble  traits 
of  human  character  as  goodness,  truth, 
purity,  and  justice  "crumble  into  dust," 
if  we  rob  them  of  immortality.— 

"Truth,  for   Truth  is  Truth,  he  worshipt,  being 
true  as  he  was  brave  ; 
Good,  for  Good  is    Good,  he  follow'd,  yet  he 
look'd  beyond  the  grave,^ 

1  Probably  written  shortly  before  1886,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  volume,  Locksley  Hall  Sixty  Years  Afler, 
and  other  Poems,  1886.     Dated  1887. 

2  Probably  descriptive  of  his  son  Lionel.  CL 
Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  p.  329. 


Iimnortality  i6() 

"  Wiser    there    than    you,    that   crowning    barren 
Death  as  lord  of  all, 
Deem  this  over-tragic  drama's  closing  curtain  is 
the  pall ! 

"  Beautiful  was  death  in  him,  who  saw  the  death, 
but  kept  the  deck, 
Saving  women  and  their  babes,  and  sinking  with 
the  sinking  wreck, 

"  Gone  for  ever  !     Ever  ?  no  —  for  since  our  d3'ing 
race  began. 
Ever,  ever,  and  for  ever  was  the  leading  light  of 
man. 

"Those  that  in  barbarian  burials  kill'd  the  slave, 
and  slew  the  wife 
Felt  within  themselves  the  sacred  passion  of  the 
second  life. 

"  Indian  warriors  dream  of  ampler  hunting  grounds 
beyond  the  night ; 
Ev'n  the  black  Australian  dying  hopes  he  shall 
return,  a  white. 

"  Truth  for  truth,  and  good  for  good  !   The  Good, 
the  True,  the  Pure,  the  Just  — 
Take  the  charm  '  For  ever '  from  them,  and  they 
crumble  into  dust." 

And  one  of  the  last  couplets  of  this  poem 
embodies  the  injunction:  — 


ijo  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

"  Follow  Light,  and  do  the  Right  —  for  man  can 
half-control  his  doom  — 
Till  you  find  the  deathless  Angel  seated  in  the 
vacant  tomb." 

On    Dec.     13,    1889,    when    Tennyson 
was  eighty  years  old,  appeared  his  volume 
entitled  Demeter  and  other  Poems.     There 
are  several  poems  in  this  volume  which 
merely    indicate    TennysQiils__beHef _   in 
immortality,  such  as  The  Ring,  and  By  an 
Evolutionist.     But  there  is  one  which  is 
of  great  interest  as  marking  probably  the 
close  of  this  third  stage  or  moment  in  the 
development  of  his  thought  on  immortality, 
^^     — the   period   of    rational    consideration. 
/      The  poem  is  entitled     Fastness.     It  is  a 
most  emphatic  reiteration  of  a  "  reason  "  / 
for  belief  in  the  future  life  which  was  very 
influential  with  Tennyson.     This  reason' 

I     or  ground  of  belief  is  the  absolute  vanity, 
4  .  ^^^   utter   uselessness    and    meaningless- 
ness  of  all  things  if  man  be  not  immor- 
tal.     Politics,   stately  purposes,   valor  in 

V      battle,  glorious  annals,  martyrdom  for  the 


Immortality  jyj 

right,  pain  and  pleasure,  wealth  and  pov- 
erty, fame  and  love,  the  loss  of  the  flesh 
and  the  conquest  of  the  spirit;  spring 
and  summer,  autumn  and  winter;  old  and 
new-old  revolutions;  philosophies  and 
sciences;  poetry  and  prayer,  — what  do  all 
these  things  amount  to,  what  meaning  do 
they  have,  what  purpose  do  they  serve, — 

"  if  we  all  of  us  end  but  in  being  our 
own  corpse-coffins  at  last, 
Swallow'd  in  Vastness,  lost  in  Silence,  drown'd  in 
the  deeps  of  a  meaningless  Past  ? 

"  What  but  a  murmur  of  gnats  in  the  gloom,  or  a 
moment's  anger  of  bees  in  their  hive  ?  " 

If  man's  end  is  the  grave,  then,  indeed, 
are  vanity  and  worthlessness  written  on 
the  f^ce  of  all  things  human.  Nothing  is 
more  apparent  to  the  poet  than  this,  and 
it  seems  as  though,  after  a  long  period  of 
argument  with  himself  and  his  age,  he 
means  to  close  the  discussion  with  an 
emphatic  re-statement  of  the  fact,  and  an 
affirmation,  that  "the  dead  are  not  dead, 
but  alive." 


iy2  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Thus,    in   this    long   stretch  of   years, 
extending  from   1833  to  1889, — covering 
fifty-six  years  of  the  poet's  life,  — do  we 
find  him  earnestly  reflecting  on  the  ques- 
tion of  human  destiny.     During  this  long 
period  the  question  receives  rational  con- 
sideration, —  the  evidence  for  and  against 
belief    in    immortality    being     carefully 
weighed.      Sometimes    he    rests    in    the 
favorable    evidence    as    though    he    had 
reached   a    permanent    attitude.       Then, 
such  evidence  seems  to  lose  its  force,  and 
the  opposing  evidence  rests  heavily  upon 
his  mind.     Sometimes  reason   catches  a 
glimpse    of    "more    than    mortal    day." 
Again,   it  is  enveloped    in  the  darkness 
of  everlasting  night. 

During  this  period  he  has.  fully  consid- 
ered the  argument^  from  seiree.  The  dead 
man's  face  indicates  naught  of  "passion, 
pain,  or  pride."  Calm  indifference  to  all 
things  cosmic  and  human  is  his  state. 
The  poet  has  seen  change  and  decay 
written  on  the  face  of  Nature.     Things 


Immortality  lyj 

come  and  go.  Nothing  abides.  Man's 
body  returns  to  the  dust.  Yea,  even  his 
mental  powers  decline  and  ultimately  fail. 
Transiency  is  the  law  of  all  things  — 
minds  included. 

During  this  period  he  has^  also  con- 
sidered the  claims  of  Scepticism.  All 
things  finite  have  had  a  beginning 
and  must  therefore  have  an  end.  "To 
begin  implies  to  end."  Genesis  in- 
volves Nemesis.  Man  is  no  exception 
to  the  rule.  He  also  has  had  a  be- 
ginning. To  affirm  his  pre-existence  is 
to  talk  of  dreams.  He,  therefore,  falls 
under  the  law.  His  extinction  is  in- 
volved in  his  generation. 

This  period  also  reveals,  the  poet  con- 
sidering the  claims  of  Materialism.  All 
so-called  psychic  phenomena  are  nothing 
more  than  higher  forms  of.  neural  motion. 
Man  is  "wholly  brain,"  and  as  such,  is  so 
completely  identified  with  Nature  as  to  be 
her  product.  Like  all  physical  things, 
then,  he  is  subject  to  change  and  dissolu- 


ly^  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

tion.  Being  merely  a  "cunning  cast  in 
clay,"  he  ultimately  breaks  and  returns  to 
earth.  The  poet  has  questioned  Nature 
on  this  point  and  has  found  her  answer  to 
be  in  harmony  with  these  claims.  Her 
only  reply  is :  — 

"  I  bring  to  life,  I  bring  to  death  : 

The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath  : 
I  know  no  more." 

During  this  period  he  has  also  dwelt  on 
the  claims  of  Pantheism.  Man,  after  all, 
has  but  a  phenomenal  existence.  He  is 
merely  a  mode  of  the  activity  of  the  Abso- 
lute. He  seems  to  have  a  being  of  his 
own;  but  it  is  no  more  distinct  from  the 
being  of  the  Absolute  than  is  the  being 
of  the  wave  or  billow  from  that  of  the  sea. 
At  death  this  particular  mode  of  the 
Absolute's  being  is  cancelled.  The 
billow  loses  its  apparent  individuality  by 
being  absorbed  by  the  sea.  So  man 
loses  his  apparent  reality  by  being  "  mixed 
with  God  and  Nature,"  or  by  "remer- 
gence  in  the  general  soul."     He  is  ab- 


Immortality  ly^ 

sorbcd  by  and    into  the  Infinite.     Ilence 
there  is  no  personal  immortality. 

And  finally,  during  this  period,  he  also 
considered   the   claims   of    Agnosticism. 


There  are  limits  to~mah's  knowledge. 
These  limits  are  constitutional  —  imposed 
on  him  by  the  constitution  of  mind  itself. 
Knowledge  is  limited  to  the  phenomenal; 
it  does  not  extend  to  the  noumenal.  The 
soul  and  its  immortality  belong  to  the 
latter  realm.  Because  of  mental  impo- 
tency,  then,  man  is  shut  out  from  a 
knowledge  of  his  own  immortality.  We 
cannot  know.  This  is  the  only  true  and 
becoming  attitude  for  man  to  take  toward 
this  great  question. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  poet,  during  this 
long  period,  has  considered  also  the  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  belief  in  immortality. 
Very  early  in  this  period  he  set  the  "  in- 
ward evidence"  of  spirit  over  against  the 
outward  evidence  of  sense  :  — 

I.  Man  aspires  after  a  nobler  destiny 
than  the  dust.      He  sit^s,  ''shaping  wings 


iy6  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

to  fly."  There  are  forebodings  of  a  mys- 
tery  in  his  heart.  The  name  Eternity  is 
upon  his  lips. 

(2)  Man  is  a  religious,  rational,  ajuL- 
moral  being.  Does  not  an  investiture 
of  this  character  link  him  to  the  super- 
natural and  make  him  an  heir  of  immor- 
tality.-* A  being  so  divine  in  nature  — 
who  has  the  conception  of  a  God  and  of 
his  relation  to  him ;  who  reasons  about  a 
beginning  and  an  end;  who  distin- 
guishes between  right  and  wrong,  and  is 
conscious  of  moral  obligation,  —  such  a 
being  cannot  perish  with  the  body. 

3.    Once  more,   man  has  peculiar  inti- 
mations of  his  immortality. — 


''  Heaven  opens  inward,  chasms  yawn. 
Vast  images  in  glimmering  dawn, 
Half  shown,  are  broken  and  withdrawn." 


^4,-^/ Again,  the  very  fact  that  man 
dduBts  his  own  mortality  in  spite  of  the 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  constitutes  a 
pre-supposition  in  its  favor.  At  least,  it 
destroys   the   force   of    the    unbeliever's 


Immortality  lyy 

argument,  for  he  is  slain  by  his  own 
weapon,  which  is  doubt. 
^5.,  And,  finally,  man  does  not  long  for 
death, "^^ absolute  extinction.  What  he 
wants  is  life,  —  a  larger,  fuller,  richer, 
"completer  life.  Why  should  not  this  su- 
preme yearning  of  the  soul  be  satisfied.-* 

But  the  poet  does  not  rest  in  this  evi- 
dence. A  little  later  he  considers  other 
*' reasons"  for  belief:  — 

6.  Life  itself  should  teach  us  that  if 
man  is  not  immortal,  then  earth  to  its 
innermost  centre  is  darkness,  —  an  abso- 
lutely unintelligible  reality,  — possessing 
no  meaning  whatever.  ^  This  implies  a 
Godless  world  and  the  destruction  of  all 
religious  ideals;  for,  under  such  circum- 
stances, what  does  God mQdjn.  to  the  human 
soul } 

7.  Again,  life  would  lose  its  signifi- 
cance on  the  basis  of  such  a  supposition. 
It  would  be  worthless  —  not  worth  the 
living.  Indeed,  'twere  better  to  cease 
to  be  at  once. 

12 


jy8  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

8.  Again,  love,  the  supreme  emotion  of 
the  human  heart,  were  an  impossibility 
on  such  an  hypothesis.  Or,  if  possible, 
it  could  scarcely  rise  above  the  sensual 
passion  of  the  brute. 

9.  Again,  not  only  does  man's  supe- 
riority of  endowment  argue  his  immortal- 
ity, as  already  pointed  out,  but  the  glory 
and  worth  of  his  character  and  achieve- 
ment really  entitle  him  to  it.  Does  not 
a  being  who  worships  God  under  adverse 
circumstances,  who  trusts  God  as  Love, 
and  Love  as  "Creation's  final  law," 
despite  the  cruel  and  bloody  course  of 
nature,  deserve  immortality?  Does  not 
a  being  who  reveals  "splendid  purpose," 
who  loves,  who  suffers,  who  battles  for 
lofty  ideals,  —  "the  True,  the  Right,"  — 
deserve  a  nobler  destiny  than  to  — 

"  Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust, 
Or  seal'd  within  the  iron  hills  ?  " 

If  not,  then  this  being  is  "a  monster," 
"a  dream,"  "a  discord,"  and  his  life  is  as 
"futile"  as  it  is  "frail." 


^...-  Immortality  lyg 

10.'  Again,  the  great  cosmic  process 
indicates  man's  immortality.  It' does  this 
in  two  ways :  {a)  Evolution  is  the  order 
of  the  world's  on-going.  Progress  from 
the  lower  to  the  higher  seems  to  be  the 
cosmic  order  of  procedure.  Man  himself 
is  involved  in  this  cosmic  order.  Hence 
he,  too,  moves  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
state.  True  to  this  order  of  the  universe, 
he  is  "the  herald  of  himself  in  higher 
place."  But  {b)  man  stands  at  the  head 
of  creation.  He  is  Nature's  supreme 
work.  All  of  her  work  preceding  the 
coming  of  man  was  preparatory  to  his 
advent.  In  view  of  this  stupendous  prep- 
aration, man  must  have  a  greater  career 
than  is  implied  in  threescore  years  and 
ten.  He  must  "breathe  an  ampler  day" 
than  this,  "for  ever  nobler  ends." 

1 1.  Again,  Justice  is  a  fundamental 
attribute  of  Deity.  To  create  a  being 
who  desires  immortality,  who  yearns  for 
life, — higher,  richer,  completer  life, — 
and  then  fail  to   satisfy  his  yearning,    is 


i8o  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

irreconcilable  with  God's  justice.  To 
cancel  such  a  being's  existence  is  out  of 
all  harmony  with  the  essential  nature  of 
God. 

12.  Again,  there  are  times  when  the 
soul  intuits  its  own  immortality.  They 
come  with  the  consciousness  of  duty  per- 
formed. They  are  the  supreme  moments 
in  the  life  of  the  spirit,  when  it  stands 
face  to  face  with  reality  —  with  the  real- 
ity of  God;  with  the  reality  of  self;  with 
the  reality  of  its  own  immortality.  Mo- 
ments when  man  — 

"  feels  he  cannot  die, 
And  knows  himself  no  vision  to  himself, 
Nor  the  high  God  a  vision." 

13.  Again,  the  belief  in  man's  immor- 
tality is  not  only  universal,  but  it  is  also 
the  essential  condition  of  human  progress. 
There  are  certain  fundamental  virtues 
which  lie  at  the  foundations  of  all  social 
order  and  condition  its  progress.  These 
are  Goodness,  Truth,  Purity,  and  Justice. 
They  are  human  attributes.     Were  we  to 


Immortality  iSr 

rob    them    of    immortality,    they    would 
"crumble  into  dust." 


14.  Again,  there  are  super-normal  expe- 
riences in  the  life  of  the  soul  which  throw 
light  on  this  great  question,  —  experiences 
when  "the  mortal  limit  of  the  Self"  is 
loosed  and  the  soul  is  carried  "beyond  the 
gates  of  birth  and  death."  To  one  who 
has  had  such  experiences,  the  claims  of 
mortality  seem  absurd.  In  such  a  trance 
there  is  a — 

"gain  of  such  laro:e  life  as  match'd  with  ours 
Were  Sun  to  spark  —  unshadowable  in  words." 

These    are    the    considerations   which 

make  for  belief  in  immortality.     They  are 

the  reasons  for  faith  which  Tennyson  gave 

to  himself  and  to  others  during  fifty-six 

years  of  serious    reflection.      He  did  not 

present   them    as    constituting  a  proof  or 

demonstration  of    the  soul's   immortality. 

He  believed  rather  that  immortality,  like 

God  and  freedom,  belonged  to  — 

"  The  truths  that  never  can  be  proved 

Until  we  close  with  ail  we  loved, 
And  all  we  How  from,  soul  in  soul." 


i82  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Indeed,  at  one  time  he  did  not  regard 
some,  at  least,  of  the  above  "  reasons " 
as  closing  "grave  doubts  and  answers,'* 
but  as  merely  the  work  of  sorrow,  whose 
"care  is  not  to  part  and  prove,"  making 
doubt  subservient  to  love,  loosing  — •* 

"  from  the  lip 
Short  swallow-flights  of  song,  that  dip 
Their  wings  in  tears,  and  skim  away." 

He  says  emphatically  in  The  Ancient 
Sage  — 

"  Thou  canst  not  prove  thou  art  immortal,  no 
Nor  yet  that  thou  art  mortal." 

Immortality  is  neither  a  truth  of  sense  " 
nor  of  understanding,  but  of  faith,  where- 
fore we  are  enjoined  to  "cling  to  Faith." 
But  this  faith  is  a  rational,  not  a  blind 
faith.  It  is  based  on  reason ;  and  Tenny- 
son, during  these  fifty  years  and  more, 
has  been  trying  "  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith,"  —  to  unfold  its  rational  character 
—  with  the  results  recorded  above.  It 
is  evident,  then,  that  he  takes  the  same 
attitude  toward  immortality  that  he  takes 


Immortality  i8j 

toward  God  and  freedom,  viz.  :  that  it  is 
not  a  truth  of  knowledge,  but  of  faith. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  fourth 
period  in  the  history  of  Tennyson's  atti- 
tude toward  this  vital  question.  This  is 
the  attitude  of  comparatively  undisturbed 
repose  in  the  belief  in  man's  immortality. 
He  has  fought  his  own  doubts  and  the 
doubts  of  his  age  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  He  has  gained  the  victory  over 
personal  doubt  and  has  done  valiant  ser- 
vice in  defence  of  the  Faith.  He  is 
now  at  peace.  This  is  already  manifest 
in  Demeter  and  other  Poems ^  especially  in 
the  beautiful  lyric,  Crossing  the  Bar,  em- 
bodying a  more  beautiful  faith.  ^  For 
him,  as  revealed  by  this  poem,  the  grave 

1  Tennyson's  son  says:  '"Crossing  the  Bar'  was 
written  in  my  father's  eighty-first  year,  on  a  clay  in 
October  when  we  came  from  Aldworth  to  Farringford. 
Before  reaching  Farringford  he  had  the  Moaning  of  the 
Bar  in  his  mind,  and  after  dinner  he  showed  me  this 
poem  written  out. 

"  I  said, '  That  is  the  crown  of  your  life's  work. '  I  fc 
answered,  '  It  cnmc  in  a  moment.'  He  explained  the 
'Pilot'  as  'That  Divine  and  Unseen  who  is  always 
guiding  us.'" — Memoir,  vol.  ii.  pp.  366,  367. 


isS^ 


i84-  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

has  lost  its  victory  and  death  has  lost  its 
sting.  The  poet  wants  *'no  sadness  of 
farewell "  when  he  embarks  upon  the  sea 
whose  flood  may  bear  him  far  "from  out 
our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place;  "  because, 
he  says,  — 

"  I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 
When  I  have  crost  the  bar." 

Death  is  merely  "that  which  drew  from 
i  out  the   boundless  deep,"   turning   home 

,  again. 

This  calm  and  peaceful  faith  is  further 
manifest  in  the  last  volume  of  his  poems, 
entitled,  The  Death  of  CEnojte,  Akbar's 
Dreanty  and  other  Poems.  This  volume 
was  published  a  few  weeks  after  his 
death,  which  occurred  Oct.  i6,  1892. 
Here  we  meet  with  the  poem  entitled 
Faith,  which  is  undoubtedly  expressive 
of  the  faith  of  the  poet.  Death  will  fling 
open  "the  gates  that  bar  the  distance," 
and  the  immortal  life  will  bring  with  it 
worthier  conceptions  of  the  character  of 


Immortality  iSj 

God  than  those  expressed  by  human  creeds. 
Even  here  there  "  comes  a  gleam  of  what 


is  higher. 


"  Neither  mourn  if  human  creeds  be  lower  than  the 

heart's  desire ! 
Thro'  the  gates  that  bar  the  distance  comes  a 

gleam  of  what  is  higher. 
Wait  till  Death  has  flung  them  open,  when  the 

man  will  make  the  Maker 
Dark  no  more  with  human  hatreds  in  the  glare  of 

deathless  fire ! " 

Here,  too,  there  is  the  little  poem,  T/ie 
I  Silent  Voices,  which  reveals  his  thought 
as  pushing  forward  into  the  future  life. 
There  is  almost  an  impatient  yearning  to 
enter  into  its  realities.  He  cares  more 
for  "the  heights  beyond"  than  for  "the 
lowland  ways  behind." 

"  When  the  dumb  Hour,  clothed  in  black, 
Brings  the  Dreams  a]K)ut  my  bed, 
Call  mc  not  so  often  l)ack. 
Silent  Voices  of  tlie  dead. 
Toward  the  lowland  ways  behind  me, 
And  the  sunlight  that  is  gone  ! 
Call  mc  rather,  silent  voices. 


/ 


\ 


i86  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

Forward  to  the  starry  track 
Glimmering  up  the  heights  beyond  me 
On,  and  always  on  !  " 

Again,  in  the  poem  entitled,  God  and 
the  Universe y  he  reveals  a  calm  and  dig- 
nified faith.  His  son  informs  us,  that 
several  hours  before  his  father's  death 
he  exclaimed,  "I  have  opened  it."  The 
son  adds:  "whether  this  referred  to  the 
Shakespeare  opened  by  him  at 

'  Hang  there  like  fruit,  my  soul, 
Till  the  tree  die,' 

which  he  always  called  among  the  tender- 
est  lines  in  Shakespeare :  or  whether  one 
of  his  last  poems,  of  which  he  was  fond, 
was  running  through  his  head  I  cannot 
tell  "  1  God  and  the  Universe  is  the  poem 
referred  to.     After  asking,  — 

*'  Will  my  tiny  spark  of   being  wholly  vanish  in 
your  deeps  and  heights  ? 
Must  my  day  be  dark  by  reason,  O  ye  Heavens, 

of  your  boundless  nights, 
Rush  of  Suns,  and  roll  of  systems,  and  your  fiery 
clash  of  meteorites  ?" 

1  Memoir,  vol,  ii.  pp.  427*  428. 


Immortality  iSj 

he  answers :  — 

"  Spirit,  nearing  yon  dark  portal  at  the  limit  of  thy 
human  state, 
Fear  not  thou  the  hidden  purpose  of  that  Power 

which  alone  is  great, 
Nor  the  myriad  world,  His  shadow,  nor  the  Silent 
r  Opener  of  the  Gate." 

And,  finally,  in  The  Death  of  the  Duke 
of  Clarence  and  Avondale^  we  have  a  splen- 
did declaration  of  the  poet's  faith  in  the 
words:  — 

"  The  face  of  Death  is  toward  the  Sun  of  Life, 
His  shadow  darkens  earth  :  his  truer  name 
^    Is  '  Onward,'  no  discordance  in  the  roil 
And  march  of  that  Eternal  Harmony 
Whereto  the  worlds  beat  time,  tho'  faintly  heard 
Until  the  great  Hereafter." 

Thus,  in  all  of  these  poems,  he  strikes  \ 
a  clear  note.  There  is  no  wavering  of 
faith.  It  remains  sure  and  steadfast. 
His  own  doubts  have  vanished.  He  has 
sailed  *'the  sunless  gulfs  of  doubt"  of 
his  age  and  lias  issued  into  a  sunlit  sea 
of  faith.  For  him,  "utter  darkness" 
does  not  close  the  day.      P\ar  out   beyond 


V 


i88  The  Mind  of  Tennyson 

'•  A  hundred  ever-rising  mountain  lines, 
And  past  the  range  of  Night  and  Shadow" 

he  sees  — ■ 

"  The  high-heaven  dawn  of  more  than  mortal  day 
Strike  on  the  Mount  of  Vision  !  " 

Is  it  any  wonder,  after  such  a  long  period 
of  earnest  consideration  of  the  question 
of  immortality,  culminating  in  such  a 
serene  personal  faith,  that  the  poet,  a 
few  days  before  his  death,  should  make 
the  request  of  his  son,  "Mind  you  put 
*  Crossing  the  Bar '  at  the  end  of  all 
editions  of  my  poems "  ?  ^  Is  not  his 
meaning  clear?  Is  not  the  request  a 
communication  to  the  world  of  his  belief 
in  the  "  life  everlasting  "  ?  And  how 
surpassingly  beautiful  is  the  belief  which 
is  expressed,  as  well  as  the  manner  of  its 
expression !  — 

"  Sunset  and  evening  star, 
And  one  clear  call  for  me  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 
When  I  put  out  to  sea, 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.  p.  367. 


Immortality  i8g 

"  But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 
Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from   out  tlie  boundless 
deep 
Turns  again  home. 

"  Twilight  and  evening  bell. 
And  after  that  the  dark  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 
When  I  embark  ; 

*'  For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 
The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 
When  I  have  crost  the  bar." 


INDEX 


Akbar's  Dream,  7. 
Alexander,  A.,  76  n. 
Alford,  5. 
Ancient  Sage,  The,  3,  28,  31, 

33,  42,  51  "•>  58,   7h  79,  9I' 

160,  166,  182, 
"  Apostles,"  Society  of,  4,  50. 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  7. 
Arnold,  T.,  18. 

Ballads,   and  other    Poems, 

156  n. 
Bentham,  4. 
Berkeley,  4,  5,  43,  67. 
Bradley,  Mrs.,  y^- 
Browning,  8,  30  n. 
Butler,  4. 
By  an  Evolutionist,  4,  79,  96, 

102,  170. 

Carlyle,  30  n. 

Charge  of  the   Heavy  Brigade 

at  Balaclava,  157. 
Clough,  A.  H.,  II  n. 
Crossing   the    Bar,    183,     184, 


Dante,  8. 

Dawn,  The,  4,  79,  97,  102. 

Darwin,  13. 

De  I'rofundis,  2,  42  n.,  71,  76, 

79.  86,  88,  104,  157  n. 
Death  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence 

and  Avondale,  106,  1S7. 


Death  of  CEnone,  Akbar's 
Dream,  and  other  Poems, 
184. 

Dedicatory  Poem  to  the  Prin- 
cess Alice,  157  n. 

Demeter,  and  other  Poems, 
170,  183. 

Descartes,  4,  28,  43. 

Despair,  3,  79,  88. 

Doubt  and  Prayer,  54,  59. 

English     Idylls,    and    other 

Poems,  126  n. 
Elmhirst,  Mrs.,  152. 

Faith,  54,  56,  184. 
Ferrier,  5. 
Fichte,  5. 

Fitzgerald,  E.,  159. 
Fraser,  5. 
Froude,  6. 

God  and  the  Universe,  54,  72, 

185,  186. 
Goethe,  8. 

Hallam,   a.   H.,  9,  26,  107, 

loS  n,  109,  125,  134. 
Hamilton,  29. 
Hcgcl,  5. 

Higher  Pantheism,  Tlie,  2,  64. 
Hobbcs,  4. 
Hodgson,  5. 
Holy  Grail,  The,  155. 


'% 


ig2  Index 

Human  Cry,  The,  51. 
Hume,  4,  14  n. 
Hutton,  5. 
Huxley,  5,  45. 

Idylls  of  the  King,  2,  79,  S5, 

86,  154,  i55>  156. 
In  Memoriam,  i,  2,  10,  31,  33, 
42,  46,  52,  56,  58,  76,  78,  82, 
102,    103,    106,    108,    126  n, 
my  134,  I37»  151.  154,  165. 

JOWETT,  7. 

Jacobi,  29. 

Kant,  4,5,  16,  17,29,  43,  106. 

Lecky,  7. 
Locke,  4,  43. 
Locker-Lampson,  F.  7,  63,  "jii 

74- 
Locksley     Hall    Sixty    Years 

After,    93,   16S. 
Locksley     Hall     Sixty    Years 

After,     and    other    Poems, 

168  n. 
ll" Lubbock,  Sir  J.  5. 
Cuce,  M.,  94  n.,  150,  154  n. 
Lucretius,  8. 
Lushington,  E.,  6. 

Making  of  Man,  The,  4,  79, 

96,  102. 
Mansel,  29, 

Marriage  of  Geraint,  The,  94. 
Martineau,  5,  6. 
Maud,  i54n. 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  5,  19. 
Merlin  and  the  Gleam,  24. 
Metaphysical  Society,  5,  64. 
Milton,  8. 
Mivart,  5. 


Mozley,  5. 
Miiller,  107  n, 

Newman,  18. 

Palace  of  Art,  The,  2. 
Poems,  by  Two  Brothers,  113. 
Poet,  The,  102. 
Princess,  The,  42  n. 
Promise  of  May,   The,   3,  'jZ^ 
79,  94- 

Remorse,  114. 
Ring,  The,  170. 
Rizpah,  157  n. 
Robertson,  C,  5. 
Robertson,  F.  W.,  19. 
Ruskin,  5. 

Sand,  George,  23. 

Schlegel,  5. 

Sellwood,  Miss  E.,  60. 

Shakespeare,  8,  i86. 

Shelley,  8. 

Sidgwick,  5. 

Silent  voices,  The,  185. 

Sisters,  The,  157  n. 

Socrates,  10. 

Sophocles,  8. 

Spencer,  H.,  28. 

Spinoza,  5. 

Stanley,  5. 

Supposed     Confessions     of    a 

Second-Rate  Sensitive  Mind, 

I,  119. 

Tennyson,    Charles    Turner, 

113- 

Tennyson,  Hallam  Lord,  4,  159. 

Tennyson,  Lady,  60. 
Tennyson  Society  of  Philadel- 
phia, 26. 


Index 


^93 


Tiresias,  159. 

Tiresias,  and  other  Poems,  156. 

Two  Voices,  The,  2,  126,   133, 

135,  14S. 
Tyndall,  5,  6,  7. 

Van  Dyke,  H.,  87  n. 

Vastness,  3,  170. 
Victoria,  Queen,  153. 
Voltaire,  23. 


Wages,  78,  82,  102. 
Weld,  Miss,  33. 
Whately,  18. 

Why    Should    we    Weep 
Those  who  Die?  113. 

Will,  78,  80. 
Wordsworth,  8. 


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